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The 
Confederate Cause and Conduct 

IN THE 

W^ar Between the States 

As set forth in the Reports of the 

History Committee of the 

Grand Camp, C. V., 

of Virginia 

And Other Confederate Papers 



HUNTER McGUIRE, M. D., L.L.D. 

Late, Medical Director Jackson's Corps, A. N. V. 



HON. GEORGE L. CHRISTIAN 

Of Richmond. Va. 



With an Introduction by 

REV. JAMES POWER SMITH, D. D. 

Last Survivor of the Staff of "Stonewall " Jackson 



L. H JENKINS, Publisher 
Richmond. Va. 



cxf"' 



LliJiiASY uf C0NGH5SS 

1 wc G( !3ie$ Hacsivyd 

JAN 13 ia08 

0USS4 AXc. Mo. 

'COk-Y A. 



Copyright, 1907 

by 

George L. Christian and Stuart iMcGuire 



PREFACE 



The " History Keports '■ contained in this volume ( with the ex- 
ception of the last one) were prepared for the Grand Camp of Con- 
federate Veterans of Virginia, and are republished just as they were 
submitted to that body. 

When these papers were severally read to the Grand Camp, they 
were enthusiastically received and approved, were published in 
many of the newspapers of the country, and five thousand copies of 
each report were directed to be' printed for general distribution. 
The fact that this issue has been exhausted, coupled with the 
further fact that many letters have been received from nearly every 
section of the country commending these reports, has been deemed 
a sufficient reason to warrant their publication in this more per- 
manent form. 

It will be noticed that there is some little repetition in the last 
report of some of the statements contained in some of the others; 
but it must be remembered that this last report was prepared for 
the United Confederate Veterans which had already endorsed many 
of the former reports prepared for the Grand Camp of Virginia, 
and had directed that these should be incorporated in, and form a 
part of, the history reports of that great body of Confederate Vet- 
erans. 

The lecture on " Stonewall " Jackson and the account of the last 
hours and death of this remarkable man, prepared by his late 
Medical Director, are such interesting contributions to history, and 
have been so favorably received, that no apology is deemed neces- 
sary for inserting them in this volume. 



[iii] 



CONTENTS 



Report by Dr. Hunter McGuire, Chairman, ... 1 

I. Slavery not the cause of the war. 
II. Attempt of Northern writers to misrepresent tlie South and its 
cause. 

III. The Northern cause will be finally adjudged tlie "Lost 

Cause. " 

IV. Criticism of the writings of Mr. John Fiske, and of " Our 

Country," by Cooper, Estill and Lemon. 
V. All the Soutli asks that the truth be stated. 

Report by Judge Geo. L. Christian, Acting Chairman, . 33 

I. The right of secession established by Northern 'testimony. 
II. The North the aggressor in bringing on the war, established 
by their own testimony. 

Report by Judge Geo. L. Christian, Chairman, ... 69 

A contrast between the way the war was conducted by the Fed- 
erals and the way it was conducted by the Confederates, 
drawn almost entirely from Federal sources. 

Report by Judge Geo. L. Christian, Chairman, . . .107 

On the treatment and exchange of prisoners. 

Report by Judge Geo. L. Christian, Chairman, . . .141 

North Carolina and Virginia in the Civil War. 

Report of the History Committee of the U. C. V. , made to 
the Reunion of Confederate Veterans, held at Rich- 
mond, Va., May 30th-June 3d, 1907, by Judge Geo. L. 
Christian, of Richmond, Va. , ..... 173 

I. Which side was responsible for the existence of the cause or 

causes of the war ? 
II. Which side was the aggressor in provoking the conflict ? 

III. Which side had the legal right to do what was done ? 

IV. Which side conducted itself the better, and according to the 

rules of civilized warfare, pending the conflict ? 

V. The relations of the slaves to the Confederate cause ? 

Ev] 



vi Contents. 

Stonewall Jackson — An Address by Hunter McGuire, M. D., 

L.L.D., Medical Director Jackson's Corps, A. N. Va., 191 

At the dedication of Jackson Memorial Hall, Virginia Military 
Institute, and repeated before R. E. Lee Camp, No. 1, 
C. v., Richmond, Va., July 9th, 1897. 

Account of the Wounding and Death of Stonewall Jackson, by 
Hunter McGuire, M. D., L.L. D., Medical Director 
Jackson's Corps, A. N. Va., 217 

Published in the Richmond Medical Journal May, 1866. 



INTRODUCTION 



When the thin ranks of the armies of the Southern Confederacy 
were at last dissolved^ the survivors of the great struggle^ who had 
marched and fought so long and so well, went back across unfilled 
fields and to impoverished homes. Whatever perils they had faced, 
and whatever losses they had suffered, they had not lost their man- 
hood, and they had not surrendered their self-respect and honor, 
nor anything of their faith in the right and justice of their cause. 
With a heroism as true and honorable as that displayed on many 
fields of battle, the}^ returned to work, without capital and almost 
wi hout implements, some of them crippled for life, and some in 
broken health, but unscathed in honor and uncrippled in will. 
They were again to prove their manhood on more difficult fields; 
to feed and clothe their women and children, to rebuild their homes 
and to re-establish government and all the institutions of their 
civilization. 

It was not long before these veterans began to gather in Camps, 
and with no other than peaceful purposes. They would cheer one 
another in a cordial comradeship. They would remember their 
fallen comrades, and bury their dead, and succor the old and 
dependent, and care for the widow and the orphan. There was no 
thought of continuing a useless and wasting strife, or of fanning 
the fires of sectional animosities. 

Soon the pen began its useful work. Incident and story were 
narrated. Memories of camp and field were committed to print, 
the art preservative. Volume after volume was sent from the press 
to the library shelf, and into many homes. Materials of history 
were gathered. The biographies of leaders, statesmen and great 
soldiers, were written. The President and the Vice-President of 
the Confederate States gave to the world and to generations to 
come the great books which tell the story of the causes and purposes 
of the Confederacy and its appeal to arms. Histories were pub- 

[ vii ] 



viii Introduction. 

lislied of the current of events as the war clouds gathered and then 
as the armies marched and joined in the shock of battle. 

The Southern Historical Society in 1876 began its invaluable 
series of annual publications. The first volume was opened with 
the strong paper of the Hon. E. M. T. Hunter, Senator and States- 
man ; thorough, calm, vindicating the righteousness of the Southern 
cause; and it was followed by the no less convincing paper of 
Commodore Mathew Fontaine Maury, scholar, scientist and Chris- 
tian gentleman. To these were added the vigorous demonstrations 
made in the books of Albert Taylor Bledsoe, and Eobert L. Dabney 
and J. L. M. Curry, and others. 

Valuable as was this accumulating literature, confident as the peo- 
ple of the Southland felt that in the tribunal of history in all com- 
ing years the cause, to which like their forefathers they gave their 
lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor, could not fail of an 
assured and enduring justification ; there emerged as the years went 
by a condition and a necessity which had not been anticipated. 
With utmost difficulty the schools of the South had been re-estab- 
lished, and seminaries and colleges had been re-opened, in the 
faithful effort to preserve the intelligence and character of the 
generation of sons and daughters rising up through the land. It 
was discovered with a shock of pain and indignation that the great 
body of the youth of the land were being fed with a literature 
created by alien authors. Histories, biographies, readers, issued 
by publishers whose one purpose was to secure the great market 
now opening in every school district far and wide over the South, 
were found to be replete with error and misrepresentation. Con- 
sciously or unconsciously, the aims of the people of the South, and 
of their State governments were falsified, and the characters of great 
and good men were belittled and defamed. The poison of unjust 
accusation was carried to the minds of all the children of the 
Southland, and already a generation was growing up with concep- 
tions of the motives of their fathers, and the causes of the war be- 
tween the sections which were not only mistaken, but altogether 
dishonorable. The youth of the whole South were being stealthily 
robbed of an heritage glorious in itself and elevating and ennobling 



Introduction. ix 

to themselves and all who came after them. It was a condition 
and a process which could not be consented to for a moment. 
There was no surrender at Appomattox, and no withdrawal from 
the field which committed our people and their children to a heri- 
tage of shame and dishonor. No cowardice on any battlefield could 
be as base and shameful as the silent acquiescence in the scheme 
which was teaching the children in their homes and schools that 
the commercial value of slavery was the cause of the war, that 
prisoners of v/ar held in the South were starved and treated with a 
barbarous inhumanity, that Jeiferson Davis and Robert E. Lee 
were traitors to their country and false to their oaths, that the 
young men who left everything to resist invasion, and climbed the 
slopes of Gettysburg and died willingly on a hundred fields were 
rebels against a righteous government. 

The State Camp of Virginia of Confederate Veterans rose 
promptly and vigorously to resist another invasion, which would 
have turned the children against their fathers, covered the graves 
of patriots and heroes with shame and made the memory of the 
Confederacy and its sacrifices and struggles a disgrace in all com- 
ing history. The camps throughout the South Iiad a new task 
given them. They were to meet the threatening e\al at the door of 
every school house in the land. All that was, or is now, desired is 
that error and injustice be excluded from the text-books of the 
schools and from the literature brought into our homes ; that the 
truth be told, without exaggeration and without omission ; truth 
for its own sake and for the sake of honest history, and that the 
generations to come after us be not left to bear the burden of shame 
and dishonor unrighteously laid upon the name of their noble sires. 

It was in 1898 that the State Camp of Virginia made Dr. Hunter 
McGuire the Chairman of its History Committee. Himself a 
Confederate Veteran, the friend of Jackson and intimately 
acquainted with General Lee and other leaders high in office and 
distinguished in service, surgeon, professor and author, he was 
eminently qualified for the work assigned him. With others he 
examined thoroughly the histories introduced into the schools, and 
in 1899 he gave to the Commonwealth and the South the thorough 



X Introduction. 

and able report which is the first paper of the collection made in 
this volume. It refutes the common charge made against the South 
that the protection of the money value of slave property was the 
cause of the war which the South waged in its defence. It exposes 
the misrepresentations of Mr. John Fiske and other authors, and 
recommends that these and such like books be vigorously and uni- 
versally excluded from all schools and institutions of learning in 
all the States of the South. 

This work of defence for the South, begun with such ability by 
Dr. McGuire, was devolved upon Judge George L. Christian, an 
honored soldier of the Confederacy, a lawyer of notable ability at 
the Eichmond bar, and a writer of clearness, courage and strength. 
Through seven years, from 1900 to 1907, he gave patient and faith- 
ful labor to painstaking research and most elaborate preparation of 
the five papers which are included in this volume. Beginning in 
1900 with the right of secession as shown upon the testimony of 
Northern Statesmen and other authors, Judge Christian discusses 
in 1901 the war as conducted by the Federal and Confederate 
armies, again upon the testimony of Northern witnesses. In 1903 
he reviews the treatment of prisoners of war, and the history of the 
exchange of prisoners. In 1907 he reverts to the serious question 
of where the responsibility rested for bringing on the sectional 
strife, with all its loss of life and wealth and all the unhappiness 
it spread over the broad land. One who went himself to battle so 
promptly and then suffered so much in all the years since, has had 
the fidelity to truth and the courage of heart to do his duty in the 
defence of his people and of the generations to come. 

To these official reports from the History Committee of the 
Grand Camp of Virginia are added two papers of similar force and 
value from the pen of Dr. McGuire. One is the magnificent 
address on Stonewall Jackson, delivered at the V. M. I. in 1897, 
an appreciation and study of the character and career of Jackson 
which no one else in the world was so well fitted to make. With 
this also is the paper of Dr. McGuire on the Wounding and Death 
of Stonewall Jackson, which has preserved for all time the story of 
which the author was himself a part and a witness, such a narrative 



Introduction. 



XL 



as the great surgeon and friend could only himself give to the 
world. 

The publication of these papers had a wide-spread and powerful 
effect. They not only caused the exclusion of certain books from 
our schools and colleges, and the preparation of truthful history 
for the use of the young. They corrected the mistaken views of 
many of our own people, and they went far and wide in every sec- 
tion of the land and to other lands. In large degree they have 
produced a better understanding of the great issues at stake, and 
have brought men of fair and large minds to recognize the 
fundamental justice of the cause of the South and the unselfish 
patriotism and lofty devotion of the men who filled the ranks, and 
the high character and great ability of many who led them. 

As the large editions of these papers have been exhausted and 
their importance has been yet more widely recognized, the demand 
has risen for their collection and republication in the present 
volume. The book now before you is not merely for preservation 
on library shelves, but that being read, the children and youths of 
all the country may laiow that their sires and grandsires have left 
them examples of unselfish devotion to a righteous cause and a 
heritage of imperishable honor. 

James Power Smith. 



REPORT 

BY 

Dr. Hunter McGuire, 

Chairman. 



October 12, 1899. 

I. Slavery not the Cause of the War. 
II. Attempts of Northern Writers to Misrepre- 
sent the South and its Cause. 

III. The Northern Cause will be Finally adjudged 

the "Lost Cause." 

IV. Criticism of the Writings of Mr. John Fiske, 
and of "Our Country," by Cooper, 

EstiU and Lemon. 

V. All the South asks is that the truth be stated. 



REPORT OF OCTOBER 12, 1899. 



Commander and Comrades, Ladies and Gentlemen : 

The work assigned to your History Committee has been done 
according to our ability. The various histories and geographies 
authorized to be used in the schools of the State were assigned to 
the several members for examination. At a called meeting, held 
in Richmond on the 5th of June, the different reports were read 
and discussed. They are herewith respectfully submitted. They 
are marked by ability and conscientious work, and should have a 
place in your transactions. I read the list, as follows : 

Freye's Elements of Geography; Freye's Complete Geography — 
John J. Williams. 

Cooper, Estill, and Lemon's " Our Country " — Rev. S. Taylor 
Martin. 

Fiske's History of the United States — Rev. Beverly Tucker and 
Captain Carter R. Bishop. 

Lee's Primary History of the United States — R. S. B. Smith. 

Lee's Brief History of the United States — Captain M. W. Hazle- 
wood. 

Lee's Advanced History of the United States — Dr. R. A. Brock. 

Jones' School History of the United States — James Mann. 

Montgomery's Beginners' American History — T. H. Edwards. 

Judson's Young American (civics) — W. H. Hurkamp. 

Morris' Advanced History of the United States — John H. Hume. 

Myers General Histor}^ — M. W. Hazlewood. 

INDIVIDUAL PAPERS. 

In preparing the committee's report, I have felt at liberty to use 
any or all of the individual papers. The committee appointed by 
the general citizens' and soldiers' meeting, held in Richmond, Octo- 
ber 17, 1898, made a second report confirming and explaining the 
report of 1897. That also is herewith submitted. One member 

[3] 



4 Official Reports of the 

of that committee, Mr. John P. McGuire, made a special report on 
the whole subject, which has been incorporated in this paper. 

It was supposed some eighteen months ago that the History Com- 
mittee of the Grand Camp of Virginia, successful in the efforts of 
that period, had finished its labors and had no further cause for 
action nor reason for existence. We imagined that books hostile 
to the truth and dishonoring to the dead and living of the South, 
had been driven from our State, and that with them would go 
opinions derived from them and of like effect, and therefore de- 
basing to those who held them. 

The actual situation is such that we consider it wise to begin 
this report with a brief description of our position at home and of 
the forces arrayed against us. It should serve to guide and con- 
centrate our own action. It ought to secure the vigorous co-oper- 
ation of all the Confederate camps in the South. 

WORK NOT DONE. 

We were in error in supposing our work done. We are not alto- 
gether rid of false teachings, whatever may be said of the purposes 
of our teachers. Because of newly-aroused thought, the opinions 
alluded to are less prevalent than they were at the time we speak 
of, but they are still heard from young men who, during the last 
thirty years, have been misled as to the characteristics of our people 
and the causes of the "war between the sections," for some who, 
" looking to the future," as they phrase it, foolishly ignore the les- 
sons of the past, and from others who, thinking themselves impov- 
erished by the war and being greedy of gain, have neither thought 
nor care for anything nobler. There are a few older men who 
think that the abandonment of all the principles and convictions 
of the past is necessary to prove their loyalty to the present. There 
are some who dare to tell us that "the old days are gone by and 
are not to be remembered ;" that " it is a weakness to recall them 
with tender emotions." To these we reply, " Put off thy shoes from 
off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." 
Young or old, these men are few, but they are ours, and their chil- 
dren inherit their errors. 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 5 

IGNORANT TEACHERS. 

Those not already aware of it, will be surprised to learn that 
there are teachers in the South — high in position — but, as we 
think, very ignorant of our history — who accept the Northern 
theory that " slavery was the cause of the war," and must accept 
the dishonoring consequence that its preservation was our sole ob- 
ject in that struggle — the favorite position of the Northern advo- 
cates and the last support of their cause. This position they take in 
spite of the fact that the quarrel between the North and the South 
began when slavery existed in all the States. That writers or read- 
ers should ignore the proofs of this is surprising. We cite, for in- 
stance, "Washington's stem order issued to the army before Boston 
in 1775, promising summary punishment to any man who should 
say or do anything to aggravate what he calls "the existing sec- 
tional feeling." For that feeling in that day we cannot find cause 
in slavery, for the good people of New England shared our South- 
ern guiltiness. Nor is it to be explained except as springing from 
the old jealousy of Puritan and Cavalier, and the resentment of the 
Virginians against the New Englanders for failing to help 
them in the Indian war ; whence, according to some authorities, the 
epithet, "Yankee" sprang. 

At a later day (in 1786) Mr. Jay recommended to Congress that 
in exchange for a favorable commercial treaty with Spain we should 
yield to her condition that "no American vessel should navigate 
the Mississippi below the mouth of the Yazoo," New England — 
caring notliing for the distant Mississippi — supported this narrow 
and selfish policy; exciting, say contemporary writers, "the fierce 
indignation of the South, and especially of Virginia, to which 
State Kentucky then belonged." We quote in substance from Mr. 
Fiske's " Critical Period of American History." He recites the 
fact, but sees no connection between the incident and sectional 
war. 

OF GRAVE IMPORT. 

So of New England's pursuit of separate interests in 1812, the 
tariff iniquity of 1828, and the nullification struggle ; all of which 



6 0-fJicial Reports of the 

intensified the general bad feeling. These are matters of common- 
est knowledge and of the gravest import. They are, nevertheless, 
ignored by many Northern writers as causes of the war. One 
prominent writer — Mr. Fiske — very briefly mentions the Hartford 
Convention of 1814. Even our old enemy, Mr, Barnes, gives the 
list in a fine print note. The fact is, these matters do not serve 
the purpose, as none of them could be depended upon to enlist the 
sentimental sympathy of the world against the South. Slavery 
and Southern action thereupon must be, for these historians, the 
cause of the war. There are people at home who, with these men, 
ignore all this history and accept and support their view. We are 
glad they are few, but they exist; and, therefore, Virginians do 
not feel as they did when, at the touch of hostile spear, the shield 
of the State rang true; when at the call of honor, the State of 
Virginia stepped to the front, to stay to the end of the war. For 
all of us there is cause to fear that our success in suppressing the 
more flagrant evils has lessened our watchfulness against subtler 
forms which may prove harder to expel ; reason to apprehend that 
our people of Virginia and other Southern States may sink down 
into blind content with a situation which is still full of danger. 
If you will look over the lists of books allowed in some of our 
States you will be amazed. The artifices and corruption that se- 
cured their adoption would furnish a curious subject for a stu- 
dent of human nature. 

Virginia's hope. 

Here in Virginia our hope is in this Grand Camp, with its allies 
among the scholars in the State, and in the men upon whom the 
law has laid the heavy responsibility belonging to our State Board 
of Education. We are glad to know that these are good men and 
true; that they have on the whole given the public schools of Vir- 
ginia by far the best set of books they have ever had. So we are 
glad to acknowledge the good work they have done for the State, 
however strongly we may dissent from and protest against some 
of their conclusions. With respect to the situation abroad, it de- 
scribes it not unfairly if we say that the reasons for the existence 
of our History Committee are, in a modified form, the same that 



History Committee^ Grand Camp^ C. V. 7 

in 1861 brought into existence and moved to action the armies of 
the South. 

" In the Sectional War " (not the " Civil War," for that title 
accords with the extreme national conception and admits that we 
were not separate States) we were called upon to resist an inva- 
sion of soldiers, armed and sent into our country by the concurrent 
purposes of several fairly distinct parties then and now existing in 
the North. They came seeking our injury and their own profit. 
A new invasion, with like double purpose, is being prosecuted by 
the lineal successors of some of these parties. Two of them chiefly 
concern us and our work. The one came — or sent representatives 
to the war — bent upon the destruction of our Southern civilization, 
the eradication of the personal characteristics, opinions, thought, 
and mode of life which made our men different, antagonists, and 
hateful to them. The other preferred war to the loss of material 
prosperity, which they apprehended in case the South should attain 
a position beyond the reach of Northern law-makers and Northern 
tax-collectors. Mr. Lincoln represented the latter, when, in reply 
to Mr. John Baldwin and Mr. A. H. H. Stuart, who, as representa- 
tives of the Virginia Convention, then in session, urged him to 
delay the action that opened the war, he asked, "What is to be- 
come of my revenue in New York if there is a 10 per cent, tariff 
at Charleston ? " The following incident points to the former : 
About the year 1850 a distinguished Northern statesman said to 
a party of Southern congressmen, " You gentlemen will have to 
go home and beat your plow-shares into swords and your pruning- 
hooks into spears, for the Northern school-mistresses are training 
a generation to fight the South." 

AGAINST TWO PARTIES. 

No longer concerning ourselves with the sentimental unionists 
and honest abolitionists — whose work seems to be over — we still 
struggle against the two parties we have described. These exist 
in their successors to-day — their successors who strive to control 
the opinions of our people, and those who seek to make gain by 
their association with us. 



8 Official Reports of the 

Co-operating with these and representing motives common to 
them all, is a new form of another party, which has existed since 
sectionalism had its birth; the party which has always labored to 
convince the world that the North was altogether right and right- 
eous, and the South wholly and wickedly wrong in the sectional 
strife. This party is to-day the most distinctly defined and the 
most dangerous to us. Its chief representatives are the historians 
against whose work we are especially engaged. "We are enlisted 
against an invasion organized and vigorously prosecuted by all of 
these people. They are actuated by all the motives we have de- 
scribed; but they have two well-defined (and, as to us,) malignant 
purposes. One of them is to convince all men, and especially our 
Southern children, that we were, as Dr. Curry expresses their view, 
'•' a brave and rash people, deluded by bad men, who attempted in 
an illegal and wicked manner, to overthrow the Union." The 
other purpose — and for this especially they are laboring — is to have 
it believed that the Southern soldier, however brave, was actuated 
by no higher motive than the desire to retain the money value of 
slave property. They rightly believe that the world, once convinced 
of this, will hold us degraded rather than worthy of honor, and that 
our children, instead of reverencing their fathers, will be secretly, if 
not openly, ashamed. 

They now seek to carry out their purposes not by the aid of 
armed soldiers, but through the active employment of energies, 
agencies, and agents, who are as the caterpillar and canker-worm 
for destructiveness, and as the locust for multitude. The whole 
force of journalists, poets, orators, and writers of all classes is 
employed in their cause, especially the Northern history-makers, 
whose books have been and are now, to some extent, in the hands 
of Southern children. 

LABORED FOR EVIL. 

The character of the work has been in greater or less degree such 
as might have been expected. By every variety of effort, from 
direct denunciation to faint praise, by false statement and more 
subtle suggestion, by sophistry of reasoning and imexpected infer- 
ence, by every sin of omission and commission, these writers have 



History Committee, Grand Cam/p, C. V. & 

labored since the close of the war, as their predecessors had done 
before it, to conceal or pervert the facts of our history. In the 
past they have been to a great extent successful. Up to the war 
our people were as unknown as if they had lived on another planet — 
or known only to be condemned. The world has grown wiser. 
Therefore, these men, hopeless of retaining in the high court of 
the future the packed juries and prejudiced judges before whom 
they have heretofore urged their cause against us, gradually de- 
spairing of final success in distorting facts as touching either the 
legal aspect of the case or our military history, still retain the 
hope, and now bend their energies to the task, of convicting us all — 
leaders and people — of such motives as shall appear to the world, 
and to our children, as proof of dishonor ; and rob statesmen, faith- 
ful citizen and soldier alike, of the admiration now justly accorded. 
A distinguished writer has lately said that 'Tiistory as written, 
if accepted in future years, will consign the South to infamy." 
He further observes that " the conquerors write the histories of 
all conquered peoples." Wliether or not the records of mankind 
show this last statement to be true, it is certainly not true that 
all conquered peoples have so learned the story of their father's 
deeds; nor can it be shown that the conquerors have habitually 
sought to force such teachings upon them. Wiser statesmen have 
known with Macaulay, that " a people not proud of the deeds of 
a noble ancestry will never do anything worthy to be remembered 
by posterity." He is a stupid educator who does not know that 
a boy ashamed of his father will be a base man. Such a direct 
attempt to change the character of a people has been almost un- 
known. It is true that traces of the Latin language show us 
where the Eoman legions marched. ISTorman French was the court 
language in England after the conquest, and entered our English 
speech. These results, long resisted by patriotic men, came by 
natural assimilation. The relentless and remorseless "man of 
blood and iron " did — as a last measure of utter subjugation — at- 
tack the minds of the children of Alsace and Lorraine through the 
books ordered for the schools. Through dire penalties these orders 
were enforced; in hopeless despair these provinces submitted. The 



10 Official Rejjorts of the 

Prussian is not entirely alone, and doubtless had thought of re- 
tributive justice in mind. For the demon Corsican, in his day 
of sweeping conquest, compelled conquered provinces to submit 
to French school laws. The most recent histoiy furnishes one 
more example. Under date of June 28, 1899, we find an order of 
the United States Provost-Marshal-General in Manila compelling 
the attendance of all children between six and twelve at the re- 
opened public schools and ordaining that " one hour's instruction 
per day shall be devoted to teaching the English language." We 
have not yet heard what history of the present war the Philipinos 
are to study. It is not exactly in point, but it is interesting to 
note that the schools of Franch to-day use histories that teach the 
children how entirely Frenchmen won the American War of Inde- 
pendence. Doubtless an instance may be found here and there of 
compulsory study of the history of a conquest by the conquered 
people. When occurring it has been the conqueror's final and to 
his mind most radical expedient, applied by and with relentless 
force, and with deadly intent to change the minds and characters 
of the new subjects. 

CRUELEST CONQUEROES. 

It remained for these, our Southern States, with this State of 
Virginia leading and guiding the others, (as we fear the record 
shows) to present the first instance of voluntary submission to 
this last resort of the crudest conquerors. The history of the 
human race furnishes no like example of men who, by their own 
action, have so exposed their children; of men, who, unconstrained, 
have dishonored the graves and memories of their dead. Our own 
people have aided and are still aiding, with " all the insistence of 
damned and daily school-room iteration," in the work of teach- 
ing those malignant falsehoods to Southern children; in the work 
of so representing a brave people to the world of to-day and the 
ages to come. How amazing the folly' How dark the crime ! 

The folly of crime for the State of Virginia is primarily 
chargeable to the men, who, immediately after the war — when our 
hearts, if not our intellects, might have been on guard — brought 
Northern men and Northern histories into our schools and for 



History Committee^ Grand Camp, C. V. 11 

years employed them to teach us why and how Southern men 
fought against the North. Certain honest efforts have been made 
to expel these books and their teachings. Differences of opinion 
should not, and do not, induce us to impugn the motives of faith- 
ful men; but we regret that these efforts have not been entirely 
successful. 

The general views so far expressed have been presented before. 
The situation seemed to us to require their forcible repetition. 
Now, however, and by the last remarks with respect to the his- 
tories, we are brought to the special work expected from your 
committee of this year, the examination of the books allowed for 
use by the last ruling of our Board of Education, and now in use 
in the " public " and some of the private schools of the State. 

ALL ARE UNFIT. 

To begin with, and in general : As the result of our examination 
and such scholarly aid as we have been able to secure, we have to 
report the positive conclusion that no Northern author has yet 
written a school history in which it is not easy to trace one or 
more of the purposes we have described and denounced. All that 
we have seen are for this reason unfit for use in Southern schools. 

Nor do we hesitate to express the opinion that, standing, as these 
people do to the truth of history, conscious that their section is 
on trial with respect to the sectional war, and well aware of the 
growing signs that theirs is to be the "Lost Cause" at last — 
human nature being imperfect — fair history cannot be expected of 
Northern authors, unless they be of the rarest and boldest, worthy 
to rank with the inspired historians who wrote the simple truth. 
If they imitate these great writers they conquer self to an extent 
impossible for simple mortals; offend their own people, and fail 
of their market. They cannot do the first ; fear to do the second ; 
the third, their publishers will not allow. Ignorantly or know- 
ingly, seeing with the blinded eyes of prejudice or intent that 
others shall not see, they are constrained to falsify the record in 
fact or in effect; otherwise they must be silent. They have not 
been silent. 



12 0-fficial Reports of the 

NEED TO PLEAD. 

Without enlarging upon the point or using the abundant mate- 
rial to be had from English and American literature, we stop a 
moment for one or two evidences that these writers have need to 
plead their cause by such means as they can devise. The chairman 
of this committee on one occasion, being in England, heard a num- 
ber of British officers of high rank, especially engaged in the study 
of military history, express their opinion — which we rejoice to re- 
cognize, and which these Northern men dread as the world's final 
verdict — that while Washington, Lee, and Jackson were of the 
great leaders of the world's history, the jSTorth had never produced 
a great commander; that Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan were not 
to be thought of; that the renegade Virginian, Thomas, was the 
only man on the Northern side who had approached that rank. 
On another occasion, travelling in New England, he encountered 
a gentleman who declared himself a student of history, and desired 
to be told how it happened that in every crisis of the country's 
history he found five times as many Southern men as Northern 
prominently managing affairs. He knew, he said, that the time 
would come when — utterly wrong and unjust, as he thought it — 
all the romance and glory of this war would gather around Lee and 
Jackson, and not around Grant and Sheridan. The passing years 
already prove the soundness of his judgment. Well may they dread 
to appear at the bar of their own consciences. With respect to 
their latest act of war, giving the suffrage to the blacks — a deed 
unsurpassed for hypocrisy as to purpose, malignant intent, and 
disastrous effect upon all concerned — these writers know that their 
best men are uniting to condemn it, and will ere long confess that 
it was indeed conceived in iniquity and bom in sin, and is now 
itself yielding a legion of devils armed to torment the State. Alas ! 
that teachers in our Southern States should, through any mistake 
of judgment or counsel, join the North in teaching that, as far as 
we are the sufferers, we reap the due reward of our deeds. 

fiske's history. 

Now, to return and deal with the particular books we were set 
to examine : 



History Cominiittee^ Grand Camf^ C. V. 13 

First in order is Mr. John Fiske's History. This book has been 
very carefully examined, noting the changes appearing in the edi- 
tion of 1899. Eev. Dr. Tucker's and Mr. Carter A. Bishop's reports 
upon it have already been submitted. The work done by both of 
these gentlemen is able and conclusive. To read their reports 
would, of course, overrun our time. 

It is evident to all of us that Mr. Fiske is an able man and a 
student of history. He has seen, more plainly than any other 
perhaps (what the Northern orators and writers are silently or 
openly yielding), that every claim of the South, of such sort as 
naturally rests upon categorical facts, is already res adjudicata in 
our favor at the bar of the world. He knows from the writers 
around him (Mr. Lodge and others) that our claim to the right 
of secession cannot be resisted ; that the right of coercion cannot be 
maintained; that the superior personal and military character of 
our leaders is beyond dispute ; that estimating Americans, foreign 
mercenaries, and the negroes in their ranks, the average type and 
quality of their private soldier was far below ours ; and their num- 
bers so far superior that the Southern victories set the world won- 
dering. He knows, too, that the records made up along the track 
of armies and their own statistics of deaths in prison have forever 
proved our higher civilization in war. So he foresees and dreads 
the day of doom, when, as already prophesied, history is to declare 
the truth triumphant and his the '' Lost Cause." His writings, the 
others as well as the history, prove his consciousness that there re- 
mains to his section only this last resort — to make the world believe 
that our motives were base — a charge which they hope will be 
answered with more difficulty, inasmuch as it rests upon unsubstan- 
tial and intangible interpretation of facts, and not upon facts them- 
selves. 

ELE0ANCE OF DICTION". 

With elegance of diction and wealth of knowledge sufficient to 
blind and interest a multitude of readers he devotes himself to this 
object. He is an advocate seeking to procure pardon for the 
wrong-doings of his own section by persuading the world of the guilt 



14 Ojjicial Reports of the 

of ours; by convincing all who read or study his book (our own 
children among them) that in defiance of all reasons to know the 
wrong of slavery, we argued before the war and fought in it, not 
from conviction of duty or loyalty to our constitutional rights and 
those of our children, not even from insulted and outraged man- 
hood, but simply to hold the negro in possession. 

We do not assert his insincerity; it may well be that he believed 
what he said on that point. He is, therefore, the more dangerous 
as teaching falsehood with all the force that belongs to the convic- 
tion of truth. 

It will go far to establish our proposition as to Mr. Fiske's 
inability to see the truth when slavery and the war enter his field of 
view and the consequent entire unfitness of his " history " for school 
use, if we briefly examine other noted writings that have come from 
his hand. It is a maxim laid down by a famous philosopher and 
writer that children are more influenced by the spirit and the unex- 
pressed opinions of the teacher than they are by the words they 
chance to hear from his lips. We, therefore, examine Mr. Fiske. 
His personality is in his history ; the chapter and verse criticism of 
that book is in the able reports of Captain Bishop and Eev. Dr. 
Tucker, We turn to the latter half of the 191st page of his much- 
lauded " Old Virginia and Her Neighbors." It contains matter 
which will not only prove our criticism just, but furnish us occasion 
for much astonishment. Speaking of the slave-trade and its aboli- 
tion, Mr. Fiske tells us that George Mason in his lifetime denounced 
the " infamous traffic " "in terms which were to be resented by 
his grandsons, when they fell from the lips of Wendell Phillips." 
All this we quote literally. A handsome antithesis and well pro- 
portioned sentence, you will observe. The author is not careful 
to present (we avoid saying that he is careful not to present) the 
true point of contrast. George Mason denounced as " infamous " 
the sale of free men into slavery and the horrors of the middle pas- 
sage, and argued against slavery in Virginia on economic and 
social grounds. Wendell Phillips denounced the South and South- 
ern slave-holders. Mr. Fiske's readers do not learn from him that 
this was the offence that we resented, and that v/ith a just indigna- 



History Committee^ Grand Cam'p, G. V. 15 

tion which Mr. Mason would have shared to the full had he been 
alive. The inference that Virginians of the two periods were not 
of one mind, both as to the slave trade and Yankee interference, is 
absolutely false, and should not be suggested to Southern children. 

UNSAVORY WORDS. 

On that same 191st page Virginians are told that there was once 
" a short-lived emancipation party " in their State, but that " after 
the final suppression of the slave-trade in 1808 and the consequent 
increased demand for Virginia-bred slaves, the thought of emanci- 
pation vanished from the memory of man." The same offensive sug- 
gestion is made in almost the same language, "the breeding of slaves 
* * * such a profitable occupation in Virginia" in hia "Critical 
Period," etc., page 73, and again on page 266, where we are told that 
when the inventions of Arkwright, Cartwright, and Whitney so 
greatly increased the value of cotton, there resulted a great demand 
for slaves "from Virginia as a breeding ground, and the Abolitionist 
Party in that State thereupon disappeared, leaving her to join in 
the odious struggle for introducing slavery into the national do- 
main." In both passages we quote him, perhaps, a little roughly; 
in his pages all this is handsomely expressed, for Mr, Fiske's style 
is very fine, as you may learn from some of his friends. It would, 
however, be difficult to discover anywhere, pen pictures so advan- 
tageously incomplete — advantageously incomplete, because a state- 
ment of the facts would not have represented, as do these most 
slanderous sentences, a mere race of slave-breeders easily sacrificing 
their convictions for the value of slave property and ready to fight 
for it when occasion should arise. 

UTTERLY UNRELIABLE. 

It is impossible to consider these passages without becoming 
convinced of the utter unreliability of this historian when speak- 
ing of slavery, the causes of the war, or the rights asserted by the 
South. It was to be supposed that in writing Virginia history he 
would at least consult Virginia documents. He should not as- 
sume that all Virginians are equally careless, or as ignorant of 



16 Official Reports of the 

Virginia history as the record proves him to be, or as charity com- 
pels us to assume that he is. Eighteen hundred and eight is his 
date for the disappearance of all thought of emancipation in Vir- 
ginia. Selecting from a mass of documents, he might have read 
two of Mr. Jefferson's letters — one to Mr. Coles, another to Mr. 
Jared Sparks — urging his views, and plans for emancipation and 
deportation to Sierre Leone, etc., one dated August 25, 1814; the 
other February 4, 1824. (See Volume IV., Jefferson's Corres- 
pondence.) But chiefly, and utterly overthrowing all title he may 
have to credit when writing of these subjects, we have, and he 
might have had, Mr. Thomas W. White's volume, published in 
1832, containing the great Deportation and Emancipation Debate 
in the Virginia Legislature in January and February of that year; 
the debate enlisting the strongest speakers of the State and con- 
suming a great part of those two months. A debate pending, 
which, as will be remembered, the Virginia House of Delegates 
under date of January 25, 1832, passed its resolution declaring it 
"expedient to adopt some legislative enactments for the abolition 
of slavery " ; and made in that behalf a most vigorous movement, 
which was finally defeated by a very small majority, and that only 
because no man could say where the necessary means to deport 
the free blacks could be found, and none could suggest any other 
wise and safe disposition to be made of the slaves when set free. 
The recent Southampton insurrection had strengthened the hands, 
and added to the number of those who wished to get rid of the 
negroes altogether. It is to be observed that the Virginia argu- 
ments were not of the hypocritical, sentimental variety, nor were 
they the vehicles to covert hatred for anybody. They expressed the 
views long held by the leaders of public opinion here as to the best 
social and economic conditions for Virginia and Virginians. It 
is further to be said, and that with great emphasis, that the char- 
acter and conduct of free State populations as exhibited in our 
subsequent history, and the strongly contrasted character and con- 
duct of our Southern people, bring into the very gravest doubt the 
wisdom of our fathers in these opinions, which opinions we admit, 
and (as against Mr. Fiske's statements) claim that they held and 
acted upon long after his date of 1808. 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 17 

We return to say that when our fathers tried to find out how 
to get rid of the blacks, it did not occur to them to solve the ques- 
tion as our Northern friends had done by sales to the South. Nor 
could we further imitate them in contemplating with indifference 
such consequences of abolition as now confront us. The fact that 
all this history, of date subsequent to 1808, is omitted in both of the 
books quoted proves that it is not an accidental result of Mr. Fiske's 
misleading love for a rounded period. Our teachers should not 
allow our children to think of this venerable State as a mere negro 
" breeding ground," or of her people as won from other thoughts 
while gloating over the money value of the blacks. 

Mr. Fiske apparently does not know that during these very years 
the African Colonization Society, laboring to effect these very objects, 
had among its vice-presidents General John Mason, of Virginia, 
son of George Mason, and father of Senator James M. Mason ; also 
General Charles Fenton Mercer, of Virginia, who, about the year 
1825, introduced in Congress the resolution declaring the slave 
trade "piratical warfare," and, at his own expense, visited various 
European countries, seeking to have them reach the same decision. 
These gentlemen should hardly be denounced as mere slave-breeders. 

In Mr. Fiske's country he is not very familiar with individual 
acts of emancipation; nor does he know how many Virginians, 
long after 1808, manumitted their slaves — among them John Ran- 
dolph of Eoanoke, whose executor. Bishop Meade, located them in 
the beautiful region where now stands the town of Xenia, Ohio; 
giving them good homes, of which the neighboring whites shortly 
dispossessed them. Many, many such cases marked the time to 
"the fifties," when, as all men know, the end of emancipation in 
Virginia came about through the " pious " interference of the 
Northern Abolitionist. In consequence of which a Virginian, manu- 
mitting his slaves, in effect, gave the weight of his influence to the 
sentiment represented by the destroyers of our peace, and so felt 
that he must at least suspend his purpose lest he should become an 
ally of the enemies of the State. This is the exact truth of the 
situation with respect to that matter. Mr. Fiske's writings teach 
us the opposite. Our children, taught by him, would neither learn 



18 Official Reports of the 

it nor readily believe it. Our conviction is that this half page, 
though taken from his " Old Virginia," to say nothing of his yet 
more objectionable " Critical Period," is enough to banish from 
Southern schools Mr. Fiske's history and everything else that he 
ever wrote. We quote indifferently from other books than the his- 
tory, as we are merely engaged in proving Mr. Fiske's unfitness as 
a guide for Southern readers, even if the North is content to follow 
him. We, therefore, turn again to the " Critical Period of Amer- 
ican History." He is speaking of the successive ratifications of 
the Constitution of 1787. Page 330, speaking of "amendments 
offered by Massachusetts," he says : " It was not intended that the 
ratification should be conditional." Pages 336-7-8, he is telling 
us of the triumph of Madison and Marshall in securing Virginia's 
ratification by a narrow majority of 89 against 79. He goes on to 
use these words : " Amendments were offered after the example 
of Massachusetts." We appear from his statement to have acted 
after that example. It is perfectly true that both States, after 
ratifying the Constitution, did recommend certain notable amend- 
ments. ISTot one word is there to indicate any different action at 
all. We necessarily suppose that here, too, " it was not intended 
that the ratification should be conditional." Would any unin- 
formed or unsuspicious reader imagine that while the Massachusetts 
act was a simple acceptance, there occurred in the body of the Vir- 
ginia act of ratification the following emphatic declaration ? " We, 
the delegates of the people of Virginia, do, in the name and behalf 
of the people of Virginia declare and make known that the powers 
granted under the Constitution being derived from the people of 
the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same 
shall be perverted to their injury or oppression, and that every 
power not granted thereby remains with them and at their will," 
etc. Mr. Fiske evidently did not think this worth mentioning. 
The effect of the point of view upon the historic perception is simply 
wonderful. 



History Committee^ Grand Camp^ C. V. 19 

IS MISLEADING. 

In speaking of the New York ratification (page 344), he says that 
Hamilton, fighting over the question whether New York could 
ratify the Constitution conditionall}', reinforced himself with the 
advice of Madison. The question was, " Could a State once adopt 
the Constitution and then withdraw from the Union if not satis- 
fied ? " " Madison's reply," he says, " was prompt and decisive." 
Such a thing could never be done. * * * « There could be no 
such thing as a constitutional right of secession." How much of 
this he intends to give as direct quotation from Madison's lips does 
not appear. 

The letter itself our readers will find in Hamilton's works, volume 
I., or more conveniently in Henry's " Patrick Henry," volume II., 
page 368, where will also be found some interesting comments there- 
upon. It (the letter) does not contain Mr. Fiske's exact words, but 
it cannot be said that he overdraws that individual paper. It loses 
none of its force in his hands. Our author, however, thus present- 
ing Mr. Madison to his readers, deals unfairly in failing to avail 
himself of the opportunity to give certain very important counter 
utterances of that statesman. We think that in fairness to him and 
in order that readers might be more truly informed, a few linea 
might have been added setting forth the fact that Mr. Madison 
(with Marshall and Nicholas) procured the passage of the Virginia 
act that we have quoted, and was himself the reputed author of the 
"Resolutions of 1798." That being done, Mr. Madison's absolute 
concurrence with Mr. Fiske as to the whole question, might not have 
been so clear. The quotation actually given would have at least 
lost much of its force, as an unbiased reader would have thought 
Mr. Madison singularly at variance with himself, if not with Mr. 
Fiske. Let teachers, at least, tell the whole story. 

It is enough to say, further, that Mr. Fiske, writing Virginia his- 
tory, makes no allusion to the Virginia resolution, joining the Union 
in language which the concurrent debate (Elliott, volume II., pages 
625 and 626) proves to have been understood as a condition of right 
to withdraw. Not universally, of course (nor, perhaps, by extreme 
Federalists), but so far as to secure its adoption. And so far, be 



20 Official Reports of the 

it said, as forever to debar any other parties to the compact from 
any question as to the terms upon which we entered the Union. 
This is Virginia (and United States) history, as it is; but not as 
Mr. Fiske sees it and teaches it to Virginia children. Even the 
extreme Federalists supported this view by implication, if not in 
direct terms. Mr. Madison, on one occasion, replying to Mr. 
Henry's charge that they were constructing a consolidated govern- 
ment, declares that " the parties to the Constitution are not the 
people (of the United States) as composing one great body, but the 
people as composing thirteen sovereignties." Mr. Nicholas uses the 
words "the condition is part of the compact." At any rate, the 
resolution which we have quoted (though not from Mr. Fiske's 
account) passed the Virginia Legislature, and was the law until the 
9th of April, 1865. 

"With respect to New York, the untrained reader would neces- 
sarih' infer that the failure of the condition in that State was com- 
plete, while from the same Elliot's Debates (volume I., pages 327- 
329) we find the language scarcely less emphatic than that of the 
Virginia resolution — to some minds even more emphatic. 

We are not ourselves attempting or professing to give that whole 
story of both sides of the debates which fair histor}'' would require. 
But Mr. Fiske is writing history, or professes to be. Our duty is to 
inquire whether he has given us such history as should be taught. 
"We believe and claim that the contrast between his pages and the 
full records show that he has given but one side, and so has pre- 
sented a picture unfit to be shown to our schools. 

OFFENSIVE DOCTRINE 

We return to the most offensive doctrine of the books that we 
condemn, the charge that the Southern soldier fought for slave 
property. If this charge be just, let the truth be taught. It is 
false. The answer to it is on every page of our history, and the 
books that make the charge should not be used in our schools. 

We all remember how many Virginians of 1861, knowing that the 
bloodthirst of Naseby and Marston Moor was unslaked, yet weary 
of the blood-feud that had antedated the Revolution; tired of sec- 



History C ommittee, Grand C-amp, G. V. 21 

tional strife recurring with every question of general interest; 
simply weary of quarrelling; convinced by the election of Lincoln 
that the quarrel never would end — went into the war in hope of 
conquering peace, and before going gave their negroes leave to be 
free, if they chose. The attitude of one or two prominent fighters 
with respect to slave property will be sufficient for our purpose. 
The " Campaigns of Stonewall Jackson," by Colonel G. F. R. Hen- 
derson, of the British Staff College, Camberley, England, should 
be read by every man, woman, and child in the South. It would 
help the Northern people to a knowledge of the truth. On page 
108, volume I., of that great book we find the following extract 
from a letter of General Robert E. Lee : " In this enlightened age," 
wrote the future general-in-chief of the Confederate army, "there 
are few, I believe, but will acknowledge that slavery as an institution 
is a moral and political evil. It is useless to expatiate on its disad- 
vantages. I think it is a greater evil to the v/hite than to the colored 
race, and while my feelings are strongly interested in the latter, my 
sympathies are more deeply engaged for the former. The blacks 
are immeasurably better off here than in Africa — morally, socially, 
and physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing is 
necessary for their instruction as a race, and, I hope, vdll prepare 
them for better things. How long their subjection may be neces- 
sary is known and ordered by a merciful Providence. Their eman- 
cipation will sooner result from the mild aud melting influence of 
Christianity than from the storms and contests of fiery controversy. 
This influence, though slow, is sure. The doctrines and miracles 
of our Saviour have required nearly two thousand years to convert 
but a sm^all part of the human race, and even among Christian 
nations what gross errors still exist! While we see the course of 
the final abolition of slavery is still onward, and we give it the aid 
of our prayers and all justifiable means in our power, we must leave 
the progress as well as the result in His hands who sees the end 
and who chooses to work by slow things, and with whom a thousand 
years are but as a single day. The Abolitionist must know this, and 
must see that he has neither the right nor the power of operating 
except by moral means and suasion; if he means well to the slave 



22 Oftcial Reports of the 

he must not create angry feelings in the master. Although he may 
not approve of the mode by which it pleases Providence to accom- 
plish its purposes, the result will nevertheless be the same ; and the 
reason he gives for interference in what he has no concern holds 
good for every kind of interference with our neighbors when we 
disapprove of their conduct." On the same page Colonel Hender- 
son quotes from the lips of Mrs. Jackson like opinions held by her 
husband. These are opinions expressed before the war. Do they 
indicate that Lee and Jackson fought to preserve slave property? 
I myself know that at the beginning of the war General Lee, wise 
and far-seeing beyond his fellow-men, was in favor of freeing all 
the slaves in the South, giving to each owner a bond, to be the first 
paid by the Confederacy when its independence should be secured; 
and that Stonewall Jackson, while believing in the Scriptural right 
to own slaves, thought it would be politic in the white people to free 
them. He owned two — one a negro man, whose first owner, being 
in financial difficulties, was compelled to sell. The negro asked Gen- 
eral Jackson to buy him, and let him work until he accumulated the 
money to pay the General back. He was a waiter in a hotel, and 
in a few years earned the money; gave it to Jackson, and secured 
his freedom. The other was a negress about to be sold and sent 
away from Lexington. She asked Jackson to buy her, which he 
did, and then offered to let her work as the man had done and 
secure her freedom. She preferred to stay with the General and his 
wife as a slave, and was an honest, faithful, and affectionate servant. 
General Joseph E. Johnston never owned a slave. How much of 
the fighting spirit and purpose of the South was in the breast of 
Lee, Johnston, and Jackson ? Do the facts recited indicate that the 
desire to retain slave property gave them nerve for the battle? 
Does any man living know of a soldier in this State who was fight- 
ing for the negro or his value in money? I never heard of one. 
The Stonewall Brigade of the Army of ISTorthern Virginia, was a 
fighting organization. I knew nearly every man in it, for I belonged 
to it for a long time ; and I know that I am within proper bounds 
when I assert that there was not one soldier in tliirty who owned 



History G ommittee^ Grand Camp, C. V. 23 

or ever expected to own a slave. The South fighting for the money 
value of the negro ! Wliat a cheap and wicked falsehood ! 

MOTIVES OF ACTIOJ^. 

Finally, and this deserves a separate paragraph — with respect to 
the motives of action, we would be glad if Mr. Fiske or any other 
Northern author would relieve us of the mental confusion resulting 
from the contemplation of the facts that Eobert E. Lee set free all 
of his slaves long before the Sectional War began, and that U. S. 
Grant retained his as slaves until they were made free as one of the 
results of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.* 

Soldiers and gentlemen, we accepted in full faith and honesty 
the arbitrament of the sword. We are to-day all that may be 
honorably meant by the expression " loyal American citizens." But 
we are also loyal to the memory of our glorious dead, and the heroic 
living of the Confederacy, and vv^e will defend them in our poor way 
from the false and foul aspersions of Northern historians as long 
as brain can think or tongue and pen can do their office. We desire 
that our children shall be animated by the same spirit. 

Mr. Fiske furthermore teaches our children that, but for the war 
the South w^ould have reopened the slave trade. He tells, without 
quotation of authorities, a certain story of slave ships landing their 
cargoes in the South. Those of us who were men in the later fifties 
will remember a rumor that about that time a vessel (called The 
Wanderer, and commanded by a Southern man) brought a cargo of 
Africans into a Southern river. It was also rumored that one or more 
ships, owned and commanded by Northern men, were engaged in 
the same work. The stories may or may not have been true. 
Granted the truth; the fact that one or more Yankee slave-traders 
had returned to the sins of their fathers does not prove that 20,000,- 
000 of them were about to do so; nor does the purchase of such 

*" Few, perhaps, know that General Grant was a slave-holder, but 
the fact is that he had several in the State of Missouri, and these were 
freed, like those in the South, by the Emancipation Proclamation. 
' These slaves,' said Mrs. Grant, ' came to him from my father's family, 
for I lived in the West when I married the General, who was then a 
lieutenant in the army.' " 



24 Official Reports of the 

cargoes by half a dozen Southern planters prove that 5,000,000 
of them had determined thus to strengthen their working forces. 

WHAT HE OVERLOOKS. 

In his work Mr. Fiske overlooks the fact that the Confederate 
Government, at the first meeting of its Congress, incorporated into 
its Constitution a clause which forever forbade the reopening of the 
slave trade. I beg you to consider the following contrast : George 
III. forced the Virginia Governor to veto our Virginia act of 1769, 
prohibiting the further importation of slaves. Mr. Fiske tells us 
that " in J efferson's first draft of the Declaration of Independence 
this act (of the King) was made the occasion of a fierce denuncia- 
tion of slavery, but in deference to the prejudices of South Carolina 
and Georgia, the clause was struck out by Congress." 

The different impressions made on different authors by the same 
facts is to be observed. Mr. George Lunt, of Boston (Origin of the 
Late War), understood Mr. Jefferson to shoM^ that the omission was 
very largely due to " the influence of the Northern maritime States." 
Mr. Jefferson wrote the passage and describes the incident. To us, 
it appears from his account that this denunciation was of the King 
not less than — perhaps more than — of this traffic to which we Vir- 
ginians were so much opposed. As to the omission of the passage, 
he gives Mr. Fiske's statement as to South Carolina and Georgia, 
but adds the following, which Mr. Fiske omits : " Our Xorthern 
brethren also, I believe, felt a little tender under these censures, for 
though their people had very few slaves, yet they had been pretty 
considerable carriers of them to others." Of course, historians can- 
not say everything — must omit something. We could wish, however, 
that our author had displayed a less judicious taste in omissions. 
Be it understood that we ourselves omit many things that we would 
say, but for the fact that we are only seeking to supply some of 
Mr. Fiske's omissions, and so establish our proposition that our 
children cannot get true pictures from this artist's brush, and that 
his book ought not to be in our schools. 



History Committee^ Grand Camp^ C. V. 25 

UNHOLY COMBINATION. 

" The Origin of the Late War," published by the Appleton's in 
1866, but out of print for lack of ISTorthern popularity, is a book 
pre-eminently, worthy of reading. Its author, Mr. George Lunt, 
of Boston, in Mr. Fiske's own State of Massachusetts, tells us that 
an unholy combination between Massachusetts Freesoilers and Dem- 
ocrats to defeat the Whigs, with no reference to any principle at 
all, sent Sumner to Congress and materially contributed to the 
cause of the war, partly through the Preston Brooks incident, which 
Mr. Fiske so unfairly describes. " Slavery," this author observes, 
"was the cause of war, just as property is the cause of robbery." 
If Mr. Fiske will read the Lincoln and Douglass debates of the time 
before the war; if he will lay aside preconceived opinion and read 
the Emancipation Proclamation itself, he will see that not even 
for Lincoln himself was slavery the cause of action, or its abolition 
his intent ; that emancipation was simply a war measure, not affect- 
ing, as you know, the border States that had not seceded; even ex- 
cluding from its operation certain counties of A^irginia; simply 
intended to disable the fighting States, and more thoroughly to 
unite the rabid Abolitionists of the North in his own deadly pur- 
pose to overthrow the constitutional rights of the States. Just after 
the battle of Sharpsburg, from which, as you remember, he dated 
his abolition proclamation, he very clearly indicated his view of the 
cause or purpose of the war on his part. " If he could save the 
Union," he said, "by freeing the slaves, he would do it ; if he could 
save it by freeing one-half and keeping the other half in slavery, he 
would take that plan ; if keeping them all in slavery would effect the 
object, then that would be his course." Filrther, with respect to the 
provocation offered to the South that led to the war — so far as 
slavery was its cause — Mr. Webster, in his speech at Capon Springs 
in 1851, used these words : " I do not hesitate to say and repeat 
that if the Northern States refuse willfully and deliberately to carry 
into effect that part of the Constitution which respects the restora- 
tion of fugitive slaves, the South would no longer be bound to keep 
the compact." Mr Lunt and Mr. Webster were Massachusetts men, 
like Mr. Fiske. Mr. Webster was a great constitutional lawyer ; Mr. 



26 O-fficial Reports of the 

Lincoln was President. Yet we do not learn from Mr. Fiske that 
any of these heresies or mistaken purposes had currency in Massa- 
chusetts or in the Union. He would teach all men that Mr. Lincoln 
claims immortality as the apostle of freedom. He is the co-worker 
with the orator of their absurd Peace Jubilee, who lately proclaimed 
that the flag of Washington was the flag of independence ; the flag 
of Lincoln the flag of liberty. 

FALSE PICTURE. 

" Demands of slave-holders/' " Concessions to slave-holders." 
These and the like are the expressions our author uses to paint a pic- 
ture of an aggressive South and a conciliatory North. Through 
and through this author's work runs the same evidence of precon- 
ception as to the causes of war, and predetermined purpose as to the 
effect his book is to produce; the same consciousness of the neces- 
sity laid upon him and his co-laborers; the same proof of his con- 
sequent inability to write a true history of the sectional strife; the 
same proof that his book is unfit to be placed in the hands of 
Southern children. 

A curious observation is to be made. Just where we ourselves 
would say that slavery was the cause, or at least, the occasion of the 
outbreak of the war, Mr. Fiske does not see the connection. He 
would have us take even his own statement on that point with a 
very marked limitation. " Slavery was the cause," but only in so 
far as the action of the South made it so, and by no means in conse- 
quence of any act done by the North or Northern men. That is the 
doctrine that we must teach our children. Even the John Brown 
raid is outside of the group of causes. That was beyond question 
an overt act of Northern men. Therefore, the incident is to be 
minimized in history and efl^ect. Those of you who remember the 
situation and possibly marched to Harper's Ferry on that occasion, 
will be surprised to note that Mr. Fiske says " he (Brown) intended 
to make an asylum in the mountains for the negroes, and that the 
North took little notice of his raid." There is no occasion for an- 
swering such a statement. We know that Brown and those who 
sent him here, aiding him to buy his pikes, etc., purposed war, in- 



History Committee^ Grand Camp^ G. V. 27 

tending that his fort should be the headquarters of an insurrection 
of the negroes, and purposed that his pikes should be driven into 
the breasts of Virginia men and women. All of us remember the 
platform and pulpit denunciation of our people, the parading, the 
bell-tolling, and other clamorous manifestations of approval and 
sympathy which went through the North and convinced the people 
of Virginia that the long-threatened war of the North against the 
South had at last begun. In this sense, perhaps, it was not of the 
causes of the war ; it was the war. I myself saw the demonstration 
of the Northern people on that occasion. Happening to be at that 
time living in Philadelphia, it was instantly plain to me that I was 
in an enemy's country. The southern students around me saw it 
as plainly as I did. It took but a dozen sentences to open the eyes 
of the least intelligent. It was only to say, " Come on, boys ! Let's 
go ! " and three hundred of us marched over on our side of the 
line. The war for us was on, and I know that the State of Virginia 
knew that was what the North meant. Just how Mr. Fiske enables 
himself to make the statement quoted, we cannot understand. We 
only see another proof that his point of view distorts the picture in 
his mind, to such an extent that he ought not to be employed as a 
painter for us or our children. 

Much has been said of Mr. Fiske's elegant style. We will only 
observe that the sugar-coating of a pill does not justify our admin- 
istering poison. The Trojan horse may have been a shapely struc- 
ture, but in its belly were concealed the enemies of the city. It 
has been said, perhaps untruly, that the rounded period marks the 
unreliable historian. There have been notable examples of it. And 
it is certainly true that an inconvenient fact does sometimes give 
pain to a writer who is in the habit of testing his sentences by his 
ear. This is the apparent explanation of some of Mr. Fiske's olh 
servations as to slave-breeding in Virginia. 

ONE MOKE POINT. 

One other point remains. The statement has been made, and 
denied, that this book was adopted on the recommendation of the 
Citizens' Committee of 1898, endorsed by the Grand Camp Commit- 



28 Official Reports of the 

tee of the same year. However the impression as to that recom- 
mendation arose or was made on the mind of any member of the 
Board of Education or anybody else^ we are prepared to prove by 
the text, and by a recent report of the same committee, that they 
recommended only two books — the Jones and Lee histories. 

The second book to be noticed, also erroneously supposed to have 
been recommended by the committee for 1898, is the Cooper and 
Estill history, " Our Country." The effective detailed criticism of 
that work also is handed you in the able report of Eev. S. Taylor 
Martin. Like the last, this needs only a general criticism as a 
basis for the resolution we shall offer for your adoption. If you 
will read the " Introduction " you will see that the author proposes 
to write such a book as will serve to cultivate a large patriotism and 
eradicate sectionalism. This is doubtless a worthy motive. But 
a preconceived purpose in writing is the bane of the historian. 
The great Scripture models indicate no purpose; they simply tell 
the naked truth. Reading the so-called history these gentlemen 
have given us in the light of their own announced intention, we 
shall find that it has led them again and again so to present inci- 
dents antagonistic to their purpose that the real truth is not told. 
Many paragraphs in support of this statement may readily be se- 
lected. We respect their purpose, but it has far misled the authors; 
so that, to put it briefly, the book is simply not a history of the 
country. 

CAUSE OF STRIFE 

The preconceived purpose to write a book that will cultivate a 
large patriotism has led these authors so to deal with the elements 
of strife between the jSTorth and South as to make it appear that 
no guilt or blame attached to either party; that all differences 
arose naturally and innocently; that the war itself was the logical 
outcome of circumstances of growth and development for which the 
parties engaged were not responsible ; and that it was not the result 
of any such hostile feeling on the one side as any principle re- 
quired the other to return in kind. The preface, to which allusion 
has been especially made, and such paragraphs aa 416, 519, etc., 
for example, sufficiently illustrate our meaning. Tlie book is clearly 



History Committee^ Grand Camp^ G. V. 29 

in error as to some very important matters, as, for instance, in 550 ; 
but it is with respect to and in consequence of the effort to carry 
out the apparently commendable purpose with which it is written, 
that we are compelled to say that it presents a picture utterly in- 
consistent with the truth. Its principal errors thus concern mat- 
ters of right and principle, as to which it is of the first and last 
importance that our children should be rightly informed, and so 
to absolutely forbid its use in our schools. The book is all the 
more pernicious because its authors pose as Southern men. Such 
may be the truth, but they certainly do not teach the truth of his- 
tory. This so-called history does not anywhere mention the names 
of Generals Ewell, Hill, Cheatham, McLaws, Wheeler, Gordon, and 
Stephen D. Lee. Nor is there any record of the battles of Ball's 
Bluff, Gen. Lee's West Virginia campaign, Drewry's Bluff, 
Chantilly, Shepherdstown, Forrest's battle of Murfreesboro, Salem 
Church, Swell's defeat of Milroy at Winchester. The defence 
of Fort Sumter for three years, the battle of Trevillian's Sta- 
tion, and numerous other heavy engagements are considered un- 
worthy of notice by these Texas authors. The affair of the Merri- 
mac and Monitor is misleading and inaccurate. The story of the 
campaign of Lee and Grant in 1864 is a model of inaccuracy. In 
fact, it is difficult to believe that such a compilation could be the 
work of Southern men. 

LEE AND JONES. 

Finally, with respect to the Lee and Jones histories. They 
have been re-examined by members of the committee, and while 
we still regard them as the best so far published, we are glad to 
know that new editions of them have been or are to be issued, and 
we recommend to the authors and publishers such careful improve- 
ments in style and arrangement as their great merits deserve. A 
much improved edition of the first has just come to hand. We re- 
gard both of them, however, as insufficient for the higher classes in 
our schools and for collegiate use. 

Accordingly, we offer for your adoption the following resolutions : 
Resolved, 1. That this committee, after due examination and 



30 Official Reports of the 

consideration of the merits of the several histories recently put 
upon the list by the State Board of Education for use in the public 
schools of Virginia, earnestly protests against the retention on the 
list of the history by Professor John Fiske, of Cambridge, Mass., 
and of Cooper, Estill and Lemon's " Our Country," and urge that 
the said histories be eliminated from said list. 

2. That we likewise earnestly urge that the histories objected to 
above be not taught in the private schools of the State, and that 
we appeal to the parents of the school children of Virginia to aid 
in securing their exclusion. 

3. That in our judgment, we cannot now use Northern histories 
in Southern schools; and in action upon this resolution we invite 
the co-operation of the other Grand Camps of the South. 

4. That it is recommended to our " Confederate Camps " to in- 
quire into the cost and expediency of publishing and circulating 
throughout the State such a sketch of the errors that have been 
and now are being promulgated in Virginia as will rouse the young 
people falsely taught during past years to attempt their own re^ 
education. 

BOOKS TO READ. 

5. And, as a suggestion to the library committee of our various 
camps, that we recommend the reading of the following books and 
papers : 

" The Origin of the Late War," by Mr. George Lunt, an attorney 
of Boston, published in 1866 (Appleton & Co.) ; a book to be read 
by our people, even at cost of steps to be taken to secure its republi- 
cation. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Henderson's " Campaigns of Stonewall Jack- 
son," the new edition of which it is hoped will be easily within our 
reach. 

Hon. J. L. M. Curry's " Southern States and Constitution," and 
also some of the very valuable works of Mr. John C. Eopes, of 
Boston. 

6. That the Grand Camp of the Confederate Veterans of Vir- 
ginia earnestly appeal to all the other camps in the South to de- 
mand the elimination of all false histories from public and private 



History Committee^ Grand Camp, C. V. 31 

schools ; that they aijpoint committees, whose duty it shall be to see 
that this is done; to urge the Sons of Veterans and Daughters of 
the Confederacy to co-operate with them in this holy work, and to 
remember that unless this effort is made that the curse that belongs 
to those who dishonor father and mother will belong to them. 
All of which is respectfully submitted, 

Hunter McGuire, 

Chairman. 



REPORT 

BY 

Judge George L. Christian, 

Acting Chairman. 



October 11, 1900. 



I. The right of Secession Established by 
Northern Testimony. 

II. The North the Aggressor in Bringing on 

the War, Established by Their 

Own Testimony. 



REPORT OF OCTOBER 11, 1900 



To the Grand Camp of Confederaie Veterans of Virginia: 

Some time in July last, Dr. Stuart McGuire, seeing that his 
father, Dr. Hunter McGuire, the able and distinguished Chairman 
of this Committee, was permanently disabled for longer discharg- 
ing the duties devolving on him, sent his resignation to your Com- 
mander. A meeting of this Committee was promptly called, and 
it was the unanimous opinion of the members present that the 
resignation should not be accepted, but that some member of the 
Committee should be designated to write the report for this meet- 
ing. I was designated by the Commander for the performance of 
this important task. 

Fully recognizing then, as I do now, both my inability and the 
lack of time at my command, for the proper discharge of the duty 
thus assigned me, I earnestly asked to be excused from the under- 
taking, and nothing but my devotion, both to Dr. McGuire and 
the Confederate cause, could have induced me to consent to under- 
take a work for which I felt so poorly prepared. 

Since that time, the Hand that strikes no erring blow has taken 
from us our able and beloved Chairman, and he now sleeps in beauti- 
ful Hollywood. I have no words to express the personal loss I feel 
at this calamity, and I know that you, and each of you, share with 
me in these feelings. Distinguished both in war and in peace 
for ability and fidelity to every trust, there was nothing for which 
he was more distinguished, than his love and fidelity to our 
cause, and to those who fought to sustain it. He is lost to us as 
counsellor and friend; he is lost to us as our leader in labor for 
the truth. I am here not to supply his place. No one can know, as 
I do, how unequal I am to such an undertaking ; but I am here to 
try, as best I may, to carry out the plans he had formed, to obey 
his instructions, all unconsciously given. I persuade myself that 
in this attempt I shall have your kind indulgence. 

[35 ] 



36 Official Reports of the 

SOUTH NOT THE AGGRESSOE. 

The evening before Dr. McGuire was stricken with the malady 
which forever incapacitated him for any earthly service, I was 
with him, and as was frequently the case, we were talking about 
the war. In the course of the conversation, he alluded to 
the Eeport of last year, and feelingly expressed his just pride in 
the way you received it. He then said : " I am already making 
preparations for my next Eeport. I intend in that to vindicate the 
South from the oft-repeated charge that we were the aggressors 
in bringing on the war" ; and he then added : "This will be my last 
'labor of love' for the dear Southern people." Within less than 
twenty hours from the time that sentence was spoken, the splendid 
intellect that conceived it was a mournful wreck, and the tongue 
which gave it utterance was paralyzed. 

My task, therefore, is to show that your Chairman was right in 
saying that the South was not the aggressor in bringing on the 
war; that, on the contrary, we did all that honorable men could 
do in the vain attempt to avert it — all that could be done without 
debasing the men and women of the South with conscious disgrace, 
and leaving to our children a heritage of shame ; and I shall further 
prove that the ISTorthern people, with Abraham Lincoln at their head, 
brought on the war by provocation to war and by act of war; and 
that they were and are, therefore, directly responsible for all the 
multiplied woes which resulted therefrom. In doing this, I shall 
quote almost exclusively from Northern sources ; and, whilst I can- 
not hope to bring to your attention at this late day anything 
new, I do hope, by reiterating and repeating some of the old 
facts, I shall be able to revive impressions which may have faded 
from the minds of some: I shall hope, too, to reach the many, 
many others, especially the young, who have been the victims of 
false teaching with respect to these facts, or have had no oppor- 
tunity, or, perhaps, little disposition, to become familiar with them. 

REASONS FOR SUCH PAPERS. 

It is well to set forth the reasons that actuate us in preparing 
such papers as these. These reasons were presented with great 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 37 

force in the Eeport of 1899. Kow, as then, they are found in the 
fact that the denials or perversions of the truth are sown broad- 
cast all over the literature of the North. Not only does this char- 
acterize their permanent histories, as then shown with such clear- 
ness of criticism and cogency of reply, but their story-writings, 
their periodicals and transient newspaper publications — all, are 
vehicles, to a degree at least, of misrepresentation on these points. 
Their worthiest orators and writers have dared to tell the truth 
on important points, but the literature we have described is that 
which reaches the haphazard reader and permeates the South as 
well as the iSTorth. The Grand Army of the Eepublic contains 
many brave men. AVe have met them with arms in their hands. It 
contains others whose weapons of warfare are opprobrious epithets 
and denunciatory resolutions. This is a matter of annual display. 
Annually the Northern public is again misled, and its day of re- 
pentance is postponed. The men of the South are, therefore, con- 
strained to make record of the truth. I proceed then to re- 
state my purpose, which is to show that the South did not, and that 
the North did inaugurate the war. Before proceeding to the direct 
discussion of this question, and because the right of a State to secede 
from the Union was the real issue involved in the conflict, and the 
proximate cause thereof, I think it pertinent to inquire particularly, 
in wdiat special locality, if in any, this doctrine originated? By 
whom, if by either party rather than the other, it was most em- 
phatically taught? and especially which, if in either section, the 
threat of the application for the dissolution of the Union was first, 
most frequently and most ominously heard? In pursuing this 
inquiry, and adhering to our plan of calling the North to witness, 
let us ask first, Wliat was the opinion of Northern and other unpre- 
judiced writers on this question both prior to and since the war? 
Of course, we know that the right of a State to secede was com- 
monly held by the statesmen of the South, and we venture the 
assertion that no unprejudiced mind can to-day read the history 
of the adoption of the Constitution and the formation of this gov- 
ernment under it without being convinced that the right of seces- 
sion as exercised bv the South did exist. 



38 Official Beports of the 

THE RIGHT OF SECESSION. 

A distinguished English writer says: 

" I believe the right of secession is so clear, that if the South 
had wished to do so, for no better reasons than that it could not 
bear to be beaten in an election, like a sulky school-boy out of tem- 
per at not winning a game, and had submitted the question of its 
right to withdraw from the Union to the decision of any court of 
law in Europe, she would have carried her point." 

Indeed, the decision of this question might, with propriety, and 
doubtless would, have rested for all time on the principles enun- 
ciated in the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions of 1798 and 
'99, and the report of Mr. Madison on these resolutions. The Vir- 
ginia resolutions and report were drawn by Mr. Madison, the 
"father of the Constitution " ; and those of Kentucky by Mr. Jef- 
ferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence. 

These principles, emanating from these " master-builders," would 
as we have said, have settled the rights of the States on this 
question forever, but for the fact, as Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge, 
of Massachusetts, tells us, that the North was controlled by expedi- 
ency, and not by principle, in the consideration of them. These 
resolutions, when adopted by Virginia and Kentucky, were sent to 
the ISTorthern Legislatures for their concurrence; and the distin- 
guished Senator from Massachusetts, from whom we are quoting 
says in terms, in his Tn'fe of Webster, that when the resolutions 
were thus submitted, " they were not opposed on constitutional 
grounds, but only on those of expediency and hostility to the revo- 
lution they were considered to embody." That they did not, and 
could not, cite any constitutional principle as ground for their re- 
jection, only they held that the revolution involved in their appli- 
cation was at that time inexpedient. In other words, it did not pay 
the New England States to endorse the principles of those resolu- 
tions then; but when they thought they were being oppressed by 
the Federal Government a few years later (as we shall pres- 
ently see), they were not only ready to endorse these resolutions, 
hut actually threatened to secede from the Union. 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 39 

TWO PERTINENT QUESTIONS. 

But I wish to advance a step further in the argument, and in- 
quire : 

(1) Where the doctrine of secession originated^ and 

(2) What distinguished Northern statesmen have said of the 
right, both before and since the war? 

Here we may properly add the clear statement of an able Northern 
writer, who declares his opinion (presently to be quoted in full) 
that at the time the Constitution was accepted by the States, there 
was not a man in the country who doubted the right of each and 
every State peaceably to ivithdraw from the Union. In fact, we 
may at once answer our first inquiry by saying that the doctrine of 
secession originated in neither section, but was recognized at the 
first as underlying the Constitution and accepted by all parties. 
In confirmation of this view, but particularly with respect to the 
region of its earliest, most frequent, most emphatic and most 
threatening assertion, we proceed to show further, that a recent 
Northern writer has used this language : 

"A popular notion is that the State-rights — secession or disunion 
doctrine — was originated by Calhoun, and was a South Carolina 
heresy. But that popular notion is wrong. According to the best 
information I have been able to acquire on the subject, the State- 
rights, or secession doctrine, was originated by Josiah Quincy, 
and was a Massachusetts heresy." 

This writer says Quincy first enunciated the doctrine in oppos- 
ing the bill for the admission of what was then called the " Orleans 
Territory" (now Louisiana) in 1811, when he declared that "if 
the bill passed and that territory was submitted, the act would be 
subversive of the Union, and the several States would be freed 
from their federal bonds and obligations; and that, as it will be 
the right of all (the States), so it ivill be the duty of some to pre- 
pare definitely for a separation, amicably if they can, violently if 
they must" 

Whilst this author may be right in characterizing the develop- 
ment of the doctrine, and fixing this right as a '^Massachusetts 



40 Official Reports of the 

heresy," he is wrong in fixing upon its first progenitor, and in say- 
ing that the date of its birth was as late as 1811; for in 1803, one 
Colonel Timothy Pickering, a senator from Massachusetts, and 
Secretary of State in the Cabinet of John Adams, complaining 
of what he called " the oppression of the aristocratic Democrats of 
the South," said, ^*I will not despair; I will rather anticipate a 
new confederacy." ..." That this can be accomplished without 
spilling one drop of blood I have little doubt." . . . "It must 
iegin with Massachusetts. The proposition would be welcomed by 
Connecticut; and could we doubt of New Hampshire? But New 
York must be associated; and how is her concurrence to be ob- 
tained? She must be made the center of the confederacy. Ver- 
mont and New Jersey would follow, of course ; and Ehode Island of 
necessity." 

THE HAKTFORD CONVENTION. 

In 1814, the Hartford Convention was called and met in conse- 
quence of the opposition of New England to the war then pending 
with Great Britain. Delegates were sent to this Convention by the 
Legislatures of Massachusetts, Ehode Island and Connecticut, and 
several counties and towns from other Northern States also sent 
representatives. This Convention, after deliberating with closed 
doors on the propriety of withdrawing the States represented in it 
from the Union, published an address, in which it said, among other 
things : 

" If the Union be destined to dissolution ... it should, if 
possible, be the work of peaceable times and deliberate consent. 
. . . Whenever it shall appear that the causes are radical and 
permanent, a separation by equitable arrangement will be prefer- 
able to an alliance by constraint among nominal friends, but real 
enemies." 

In 1839, Ex-President John Quincy Adams, in an address de- 
livered by him in New York, said : 

" The indissoluble link of union between the people of the sev- 
eral States of this confederated nation is, after all, not in the right, 
but in the heart. If the day should ever come (may Heaven avert 



History Committee, Grand Camp, G. V. 41 

it) when the affections of the people of these States shall be alien- 
ated from each other, the bonds of political association will not 
long hold together parties no longer attracted by the magnetism of 
consolidated interests and kindly sympathies; and far better will it 
he for the people of the disunited States to part in frie7idship with 
each other than to he held together hij constraint." 

This same man presented to Congress the first petition ever pre- 
sented in that body for a dissolution of the Union. 

Mr. William Eawlc, a distinguished law}'er and jurist of Pennsyl- 
vania, in his work on the Constitution, says : 

" It depends on the State itself to retain or abolish the principle 
of representation, because it depends on itself ivhether it will con- 
tinue a member of the Union. To deny this right would be incon- 
sistent with the principles on which all our political systems are 
founded, which is that the people have in all cases a right to deter- 
mine how they will be governed." 

In the case of the Bank of Augusta against Earle, 13 Peters, 
590-592, it was decided by the Supreme Court of the United States 
the same year in which Mr, John Quincy Adams made his speech 
above quoted from that — 

" They are sovereign States. . . . We think it well settled (says the 
Court) that by the law of comity among nations a corporation 
created by one sovereign is permitted to make contracts in another, 
and to sue in its courts, and that the same law of comity prevails 
among the several sovereignities of this Union." 

Shortly after the nomination of General Taylor, a petition was 
actually presented in the Senate of the United States, "asking 
Congress to devise means for the dissolution of the Union." And 
the votes of Messrs. Seward, Chase and Hale were recorded in favor 
of its reception. 

In 1844, the Legislature of Massachusetts attempted to coerce 
the President and Congress by the use of this language : 

" The project of the annexation of Texas, unless arrested on the 
threshold, may tend to drive these States (New England) into a 
dissolution of the Union." 

Daniel Webster (the great "expounder of the Constitution," as 



43 Official Reports of the 

lie is called), notwithstanding his famous reply to Mr. Hayne, de- 
livered in 1830, in which he so ingeniously denied the right of a 
State to determine for itself when its constitutional powers were 
infringed, and also that the Constitution was a compact between 
sovereign States, and contended that the power to determine the 
constitutionality of the laws of Congress was lodged only in the 
Federal Government, in a speech delivered at Capon Springs, Vir- 
ginia, in 1851, used this language: 

"If the South were to violate any part of the Constitution in- 
tentionally and systematically, and persist in so doing from year 
to year, and no remedy could be had, would the IMorth be any longer 
bound by the rest of it; and if the North were deliberately, habit- 
ually and of fixed purpose to disregard one part of it, would the 
South be bound any longer to observe its other obligations? . . . 
How absurd is it to suppose that when different parties enter into 
a compact for certain purposes, either can disregard any one pro- 
vision and expect nevertheless the other to observe the rest ! . . . 
A bargain cannot be broken on one side and still bind the other." 

He said, in a speech delivered at Buffalo, N". Y., during the same 
year: 

"The question, fellow-citizens, (and I put it to you as the real 
question) — the question is, Wliether you and the rest of the people 
of the great State of New York and of all the States, will so adhere 
to the Union — will so enact and maintain laws to preserve that in- 
strument — that you will not only remain in the Union yourselves, 
but permit your Southern brethren to remain in it and help to per- 
petuate it." 

How different is the language above quoted from Mr. Webster in 
his Capon Springs speech from the proposition as stated by Mr. 
Lincoln in his first inaugural, when he says : 

" One party to a contract may violate it — break it, so to speak — 
but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it ? " 

But, what more could be expected of Mr. Lincoln, when it is well 
known that he held that the relation of the States to the Union was 
the same as that which the counties bear to the States of which they 
respectively form a part? 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 43 

HIS REPLY TO IIAYNE. 

Those who deny the riglit of secession are fond of quoting as 
their authority extracts from Mr. Webster's reply to Mr. Hayne, 
made in 1830. It is worthy of note that the Capon Springs and 
Buffalo speeches were made in 1851; and these last are the product 
of his riper thinking — ^liis profounder reflections. He had evidently 
learned much about the Constitution in the twenty-one years that 
had intervened, and in his maturer years, was indeed speaking as a 
statesman, and not only as an advocate, as he did in 1830. 

But it is all-important to remember that Mr. Webster nowhere 
in this whole speech refers to the right of secession. His whole ar- 
gument in this connection, is against the right of nullification, an- 
other and very different thing; but one which, as we will pres- 
ently show, was actually being exercised by fourteen out of the six- 
teen Free States in 1861. 

In 1855, Senator Benjamin F. Wade, of Ohio (afterwards, as we 
know, one of the most notorious South-haters), said in a speech de- 
livered in the United States Senate: 

" Wlio is the judge in the last resort of the violation of the Con- 
stitution of the United States by the enactment of a lav/ ? Wlio is 
the final arbiter, the General Government or the States in their 
sovereignty? Why, sir, to yield that point is to yield up all the 
rights of the States to protect their own citizens, and to consolidate 
this government into a miserable despotism." 

And he further said on the 18th of December, 1860 : 
" I do not so much blame the people of the South, because I 
think they have been led to believe that we to-day, the dominant 
party, who are about to take the reins of government, are their mor- 
tal foes, and stand ready to trample their institutions under foot." 
And notwithstanding the expression of these sentiments, we 
know, as we say, that this man became one of the most ardent sup- 
porters of the " miserable despotism " established by Abraham Lin- 
coln, and became the second officer in that " despotism " on the 
assassination of Mr. Lincoln. 



44 Official Reports of the 

DOCTRINE HELD BY GREELEY. 

On the 9th of Kovember, 1860, Mr. Horace Greeley, the great 
apostlfe of the Eepublican party, and who was often referred to dur- 
ing Mr. Lincoln's administration as the " power behind the throne 
— greater than the throne itself " — said in his paper, the Netv York 
Tribune : 

" If the Cotton States consider the value of the Union debatable, 
we maintain their perfect right to discuss it ; nay, we hold with Jef- 
ferson, to the inalienable right of communities to alter or abolish 
forms of government that have become oppressive or injurious; 
and if the Cotton States decide that they can do better out of the 
Union than in it, we insist on letting them go in peace. The right 
to secede may he a revolutionary one, hut it exists nevertheless; and 
we do not see how one party can have a right to do what another 
party has a right to prevent." 

On the 17th of December, 1860, just three days before the seces- 
sion of South Carolina, he again said in the Tribune : 

"If it (the Declaration of Independence ) justified the secession 
from the British Empire of three millions of colonists in 1776, we 
do not see why it would not justify the secession of five millions of 
Southrons from the Federal Union in 1861. If we are mistaken on 
this point, why does not some one attempt to show wherein and 
why?" 

Again, on February the 23rd, 1861, five days after the inaugu- 
ration of President Davis at Montgomery, he said: 

"We have repeatedly said, and we once more insist, that the 
great principle embodied by Jefferson in the Declaration of Ameri- 
can Independence — that governments derive their just powers from 
the consent of the governed — is sovmd and just, and if the Slave 
States, the Cotton States, or the Gulf States only, choose to form 
an independent nation, they have a clear moral right to do so." 

And we know that this man was one of the foremost of our op- 
pressors during the war, although his kindness to Mr. Davis and 
others after the war, we think, showed that he hnew he had done 
wrong. And yet, he had the audacity (and may we not justly add 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 45 

mendacity, too?) to say, after the war, that he never at any mo- 
ment of his life had " imagined that a single State, or a dozen 
States, could rightfully dissolve the Union." Comment is surely 
unnecessary. 

On aSTovember the 9th, 1860, the New York Herald said : 
" Each State is organized as a complete government, holding the 
purse and wielding the sword; possessing the right to break the tie 
of the confederation as a nation might break a treaty, and to repe] 
coercion as a nation might repel invasion. . . . Coercion, if it 
were possible, is out of the question." 

Both President Buchanan and his Attorney-General, the after- 
wards famous Edwin M. Stanton, decided about the same time that 
there was no power under the Constitution to coerce a seceding 
State. 

SENTIMENT IN THE NORTH. 

But this " Massachusetts heresy," as the writer before quoted 
from calls the right of secession, was not only entertained, as we 
have shown, at the North before the war, but has been expressed in 
the same section in no uncertain terms long since the war. In an 
article by Benjamin J. Williams, Esq., a distinguished writer of 
Massachusetts, entitled " Died for Their State," and published in 
the Loivell Sun of June 5th, 1886, he says, among other things : 

" When the original thirteen Colonies threw off their allegiance 
to Great Britain, they became independent States, independent of 
her and of each other." ..." The recognition was of the States 
separately, each by name, in the treaty of peace which terminated 
the war of the Eevolution. And that this separate recognition was 
deliberate and intentional, with the distinct object of recognizing 
the States as separate sovereignties, and not as one nation, will 
sufficiently appear by reference to the sixth volume of Bancroft's 
History of the United States. The Articles of Confederation be- 
tween the States declared, that 'each State retains its sovereignty, 
freedom and independence.' And the Constitution of the United 
States, which immediately followed, was first adopted by the Statea 
in convention, each State acting for itself, in its sovereign and in- 



46 Official Reports of the 

dependent capacity, through a convention of its people. And it 
was by this ratification that the Constitution was established, to 
use its own words, 'between the States so ratifying the same.' It is 
then a compact between the States as sovereigns, and the Union 
created by it is a federal partnership of States, the Federal Govern- 
ment being their common agent for the transaction of the Fed- 
eral business within the limits of the delegated powers." 

LAW OF CO-PARTNERSHIPS. 

This able writer then illustrates the compact between the States 
by the principles of law governing ordinary co-partnerships. Just as 
Mr. Webster did. And he then says : 

" Now, if a partnership between persons is purely voluntary, and 
subject to the will of its members severally, how much more so is 
one between sovereign States? and it follows that, just as each, 
separately, in the exercise of its sovereign will, entered the Union, 
so may it separately, in the exercise of that will, withdraw there- 
from. And further, the Constitution being a compact, to which the 
States are parties, 'having no common judge,' 'each party has an 
equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode 
of measure and redress,' as declared by Mr. Jefferson and Mr. 
Madison in the celebrated resolutions of '98, and the right of seces- 
sion irresistibly folloivs." 

" But aside from the doctrine either of partnership or compact, 
upon the ground of State sovereignty pure and simple, does the 
right of secession inipregnahly rest." 

We have quoted thus fully from this writer not only because he 
is a Northern man, but because he has stated both the facts and 
the principles underlying the formation of the Union, and the 
rights of the States therein, with an accuracy, clearness and force, 
that cannot be surpassed. 

But again : In his life of Webster, published in 1899, Mr. Henry 
Cabot Lodge, from whom we have before quoted, and who is at this 
time one of the distinguished senators from Massachusetts, uses this 
language in speaking of Mr. Webster's reply to Mr. Hayne. He says : 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 47 

"The weak places in his (Webster's) armor were historical in 
their nature. It was probabl}^ necessary (at all events Mr. Webster 
felt it to be so) to argue that the Constitution at the outset was not 
a compact between the States, but a national instrument, and to 
distinguish the cases of Virginia and Kentucky in 1799, and of 
New England in 1814, from that of South Carolina in 1830. The 
f orm.er point he touched upon lightly ; the latter he discussed ably, 
eloquently and at length. Unfortunately the facts were against Mm 
in both instances." 

And in this connection, Mr, Lodge then uses this language: 

"When the Constitution was adopted by the votes of the States 
at Philadelphia, and accepted by the votes of the States in popular 
convention, it is safe to say that there was not a man in the coun- 
try, from Washington and Hamilton on the one side to George 
Clinton and George Mason on the other, who regarded the new sys- 
tem as anything but an experiment entered into by the States, and 
from which each ncl eaery State had the right peaceably to with- 
draiv — a right ivhich ivas very lihely to be exercised." 

Mr. James C. Carter, now of New York, but a native of New 
England, and perhaps the most distinguished lawj'er in this coun- 
try to-day, in a speech delivered by him at the University of Vir- 
ginia, in 1898, said: 

" I may hazard the opinion that if the question had been made, 
not in 1860, but in 1788, immediately after the adoption of the 
Constitution, whether the Union as formed by that instrument 
could lawfull}^ treat the secession of a State as rebellion, and sup- 
press it by force, few of those who participated in forming that in- 
strument would have answered in the affirmative." 

north's attitude since the war. 

And we should never forget this pregnant and, we think, conclu- 
sive fact in regard to this question, namely: the conduct of the 
North after the war in regard to Mr. Davis, General Lee, and others 
of our leaders. As is well known, Mr. Davis was indicted three 
times in their own courts upon charges which directly and neces- 
sarily involved a decision of the right of a State to secede from the 



48 Official Reports of the 

Union. Immediately on the finding of these indictments, he 
(through his eminent Northern as well as Southern counsel) ap- 
peared at the bar of the court and demanded a speedy trial, in order 
that he might judicially vindicate his course and that of his people 
before the world. This right of trial was postponed by the Fed- 
eral Government for nearly three years. During two of these years, 
he was confined in a casemate at Fortress Monroe and subjected 
to indignities and tortures, by which it was attempted to break the 
spirit of the distinguished captive ; and at the same time to degrade 
the people whom he represented, and for whom he was a vicarious 
sufferer. It is hardly necessary to say, that this conduct is to-day 
universally regarded as not only unworthy of the representatives 
of the government which held Mr. Davis as its prisoner, but that 
it has made a page in its history of which it ought to be, and we be- 
lieve is, ashamed. 

Wlien at last the Government consented to try the case, it declined 
to meet the question involved, in its own chosen tribunal; and 
having been advised by the best lawyers and statesmen at the North 
that the decision must be against the North and in favor of the 
South, in order to evade the issue, Chief Justice (Chase) himself 
suggested a technical bar to the prosecution, which was adopted and 
the cases dismissed. The South was entirely in the power of the 
North, and could do nothing but accept this, their own confes- 
sion that they were wrong and that the South was right. 

CRUEL, VS^ICKED, RELENTLESS WAR, 

And so we say, our comrades, that just because the States of the 
South did, in the most regular and deliberate way, exercise their 
constitutional and legal right to withdraw from a compact which 
they had never violated, but which the Northern States had con- 
fessedly violated time and again, a right which, as we have seen, 
was not only recognized by the leading statesmen of the North, but 
which it had threatened on several occasions to put into execution — 
we say, just because the Southern States did take this perfectly 
legal step in a legal way, these same people of the North, 
with Abraham Lincoln as their head, proceeded, as we shall pres- 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 49 

ently show, without warrant of law or justice, to inaugurate and 
wage against the South one of the most cruel, wicked and relent- 
less wars of which history furnishes any record or parallel. Is 
there wonder, then, that the representatives of the Grand Army 
of the Eepublic would have us be silent about the facts which 
we have referred to, and not teach the truths of this history to our 
children, when we thus condemn them out of their own mouths f 

But we come now to consider, tvho were the aggressors tvho in- 
augurated this tvicJced war? 

We think it important to make this inquiry, for the reasons 
already given, and besause we apprehend there is a common impres- 
sion that inasmuch as the South fierd the first gun at Fort Sumter, 
it really thereby brought on the Avar, and was hence responsible for 
the direful consequences which followed the firing of that first shot. 
Nothing could he further from the truth. Mr. Hallam, in his 
Constitutional History of England, states a universally recognized 
principle, when he says : 

"The aggressor in a war (that is, he who begins it) is not the 
first tvho uses force, but the first ivho renders force necessary." 

Now which side, according to this high authority, was the aggres- 
sor in this conflict? Which side was it that rendered the first blow 
necessary f 

WHAT MR. STEPHENS SATS. 

Says Mr. Stephens, in his " War Between the States " : "I main- 
tain that it (the war) was inaugurated and begun, though no blow 
had been struck, when the hostile fleet, styled the " Relief Squad- 
ron," with eleven ships carrying two hundred and eighty-five guns 
and two thousand four hundred men, was sent out from New York 
and Norfolk, with orders from the authorities at Washington to 
reinforce Fort Sumter, peaceably if permitted, but forcibly if they 
mu^t." 

He further says : 

" The war was then and there inaugurated and begun by the 
authorities at Washington. General Beauregard did not open fire 
upon Fort Sumter until this fleet was to his knowledge, very near 
3 



50 Official Reports of the 

the Harbor of Charleston, and until he had enquired of Major 
Anderson, in command of the Fort, whether he would engage to 
take no part in the expected blow, then coming down upon him 
from the approaching fleet ?" 

Governor Pickens and General Beauregard had been notified from 
Washington of the approach of this fleet, and the objects for which 
it was sent, but this notice did not reach them (owing to the 
treachery and duplicity of Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward, practiced 
on the Commissioners sent to Washington by the Confederate Gov- 
ernment, which, are enough to bring the blush of shame to the cheek 
of every American citizen,) until the fleet had neared its destina- 
tion. But Anderson refused to make any promise, and when he 
did this, it hecame necessary for Beauregard to reduce the fort as he 
did. Otherwise his command would have been exposed to two 
fires — one in front and the other in the rear. 

SEWARDS TEEACHERY AND DUPLICITY. 

I wish I had the time to give here the details of this miserable 
treachery and duplicity practiced on the Confederate Commissioners 
by Mr. Seward, with, as he says, the knowledge of Mr. Lincoln. 
These gentlemen had been sent to Washington, as they stated in 
their letter to Mr. Seward, to treat with him, " with a view to a 
speedy adjustment of all questions growing out of this political 
separation, upon such terms of amity and good will as the respec- 
tive interests, geographical contiguity and future welfare of the 
two nations may render necessary." 

I can only state that although Mr. Seward refused to treat with the 
Commissioners directly, he did so through the medium of Justices 
Campbell and Nelson, of the Supreme Court of the United States ; 
that through these intermediaries the Commissioners were given to 
understand that Fort Smnter would be evacuated within a few days, 
and they were Jcept under that impression up to the 7th of April, 
1861, although during that interval of twenty-three days the 
"Relief Squadron" was being put in readiness for reinforcing 
Sumter. And even on that date (the day after the Squadron was 
ordered to sail) Mr. Seward wrote Judge Campbell, ''Faith as to 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 51 

Sumter fully Jcept; wait and see," when he must have known that 
nothing was further from the truth, and as events then transpiring 
conclusively shov/ed. Judge Campbell wrote two letters to Mr. 
Seward, setting out all the details of the deception practiced on the 
Commissioners through him and Justice Nelson, and asked an 
explanation of his conduct. But no explanation was ever given, 
simply because iJiere was none that could he given. And Mr. 
Seward's own memorandum, made by him at the time, shows that 
he was acting all through this matter with the knowledge and ap- 
proval of Mr. Lincoln. Histor}' affords but few parallels, if any, 
to such base conduct on the part of those occupying the high and 
responsible positions then held by these men. The only excuse that 
can be given for this conduct, is that tliey regarded it as a legitimate 
deception to practice in a war which they had then already inaugu- 
rated. 

LINCOLN ADMINISTRATION RESPONSIBLE. 

Mr. George Lunt of Massachusetts, in speaking of the occurrences 
at Fort Sumter, uses this cautiously framed language, as the ques- 
tion of which side commenced the war is one about which the North 
is very sensitive. As we know, on the 7th of April, 1861, President 
Davis said : 

" With the Lincoln administration rests the responsibility of pre- 
cipitating a collision and the fearful evils of protracted civil war." 

And so Mr. Lunt says : 

"Whether the appearance of this fleet (the Belief Squadron) 
under the circumstances could be considered a pacific or hostile de- 
monstration may be left to inference. Whether its total inaction du- 
ring the fierce bombardment of the fort and its defenses continued 
for days, and until its final surrender, justly bears the aspect of an 
intention to avoid the charge of aggression, and to give the whole 
affair the appearance of defense merely, may also be referred to the 
judgment of the reader." 

The question also occurs, he says — 

"Whether this sudden naval demonstration was not a palpable 
violation of the promised ' faith as to Sumter fully kept,' as to be 



52 Official Reports of the 

an unmistakable menace of 'aggression,' if not absolute aggression 
itself." 

And he further says : 

" It should also be considered that when the fleet came to anchor 
off Charleston bar, it was well known that many other and larger 
vessels of war, attended by transports containing troops and surf 
boats, and all the necessary means of landing forces, had already 
sailed from Northern ports — '^ destination unknown ' — and that 
very considerable time must have been requisite to get this expedi- 
tion ready for sea, during the period that assurances had been so 
repeatedly given of the evacuation of the fort. 

" It bore the aspect certainly of a manoeuvre, which military 
persons, and sometimes, metaphorically, politicians, denominate 
' stealing a march.' " 

He says further on : 

" It was intended to ' draw the fire ' of the Confederates, and was 
a silent aggression, with the object of producing an active aggres- 
sion from the other side," 

This very cautious statement from this Northern writer, clearly 
makes the Lincoln Government the real aggressor, under the 
principle before enunciated by Mr, Hallam. 

Mr. Williams, the Massachusetts writer before quoted from, says : 

" There was no need for war. The action of the Southern States 
was legal and constitutional, and history will attest that it was 
reluctantly taken in the last extremity, in the hope of thereby sav- 
ing their whole constitutional rights and liberties from destruction 
by Northern aggression, which had just culminated in triumph at 
the Presidential election by the union of the North against the 
South." 

And he says further on : 

" The South was invaded, and a war of subjugation, destined to 
be the most gigantic which the world has ever seen was begun by 
the Federal Government against the seceding States, in complete 
and amazing disregard of the foundation principle of its own exist- 
ence, as affirmed in the Declaration of Independence, that 'Govern- 
ments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed,' 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 53 

and as established by the war of the Eevolution for the people of 
the States respectively. The South accepted the contest thus forced 
upon her, with the eager and resolute courage characteristic of her 
proud-spirited people/' 

But I propose to show further that this war did not really begin 
with the sailing of that Northern fleet, and certainly not at Fort 
Sumter; and that the fiist hlow was actually struck by John Brown 
and his followers, as the representatives of the abolitionists of the 
North, in October, 1859, at Harper s Ferry, Va. 

THE JOHN BEOWN RAID. 

A Northern writer says of the " John Brown Eaid " : 

" Of course, a transaction so flagitious, with its attendant circum- 
stances, afl^ording such unmistakable proof of the spirit by which no 
small portion of the Northern population was actuated, could not 
but produce the profoundest impression upon the people of the 
South. Here was an open and armed aggression, whether clearly 
understood and encouraged beforehand, certainly exulted in after- 
wards, by persons of a very different standing from that of the 
chief actor in this bloody incursion into a peaceful State." 

John Brown and his associates did attempt insurrection, and 
did commit murder in that attempt, upon the peaceful, harmless 
citizens of Virginia, and he expiated these, among the highest 
crimes known to the law, upon a felon's gallows. How was that 
execution received at the North ? And in what way did the repre- 
sentatives of the Eepublican party endorse and adopt as their own 
the conduct of this felon in his outrages, his "first blow" struck 
against the South? We will let the same Northern writer tell. 
He says : 

" In the tolling of bells and the firing of minute guns upon the 
occasion of Brown's funeral; the meeting-houses were draped in 
mourning as for a hero; the prayers offered; the sermons and dis- 
courses pronounced in his honor as for a saint." 

Two of Brown's accomplices were fugitives from Justice, one in 
the State of Ohio, and the other in that of Iowa. Eequisitions were 



54 Official Reports of the 

issued for them by the Governor of Virginia ; and the Governor of 
each of these Northern States refused to surrender the criminal, 
thus making themselves^ and the people they represented, to a de- 
gree at least, particeps criminis. And the newspapers have recently 
informed us that the present Chief Magistrate of this nation, and 
the head of the same party, which deified Jolin Brown, and approved 
of his crimes, has visited and stood " uncovered " at his grave, as if 
he still recognized him as the " forerunner " of him whom they 
term the " Savior of the Country " ; so we regard, and rightly 
regard, his attempted insurrection, as the legitimate forerunner of 
the cruel, illegal and unjustifiable war, inaugurated and waged by 
Mr, Lincoln against the South. 

AGGRESSIONS OF THE NORTH, 

But we advance still a step further in the argument, to show from 
Northern authorities alone still other aggressions of the North 
against the South, in bringing on this war. In his speech, entitled 
" Under the Flag," delivered in Boston, April 21st, 1861, Wendell 
Phillips used this language, v»rhich we are persuaded, is the opinion 
of many misinformed people to-day, both at the North and at the 
South. He says : 

" For thirty j^ears the North has exhausted conciliation and com- 
promise. They have tried every expedient; they have relinquished 
every right, they have sacrificed every interest, they have smothered 
keen sensibility to natinal honor, and Northern weight and suprem- 
acy in the Union; have forgotten they were the majority in num- 
bers and in wealth, in education and in strength ; have left the helm 
of government and the dictation of policy to the Southern States," 
&c. 

We propose to show, from the highest Northern sources, that so 
far from the above statement being true, it is exactly the opposite 
of the truth. 

Gen'l John A. Logan, afterwards a Major-General in the Federal 
Army, a United States Senator and a candidate for the Vice-Presi- 
dency on the Republican ticket, in a speech delivered in the House 
of Representatives, on the 5th of February, 1861, uses this language : 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. Y. 55 

" The Abolitionists of the North have constantly warred upon 
Southern institutions, by incessant abuse from the pulpit, from the 
press, on the stump, and in the halls of Congress denouncing them 
as a sin against God and man ... By these denunciations and 
lawless acts on the part of Abolition fanatics such results have been 
produced as to drive the people of the Southern States to a sleep- 
less vigilance for the protection of their property and the preserva- 
tion of their rights." 

The Albany Argus of November 10th, 1860, said : 
" We sympathize with, and justify the South as far as this : their 
rights have been invaded to the extreme limit possible within the 
forms of the Constitution; and beyond this limit, their feelings 
have been insulted, and their interests and honor assailed by almost 
every possible form of denunciation and invective ; and if we deemed 
it certain that the real animous of the Eepublican party could be 
carried into the administration of the Federal Government, and 
become the permanent policy of the nation, we should think that 
all the instincts of self-preservation and of manhood, rightly 
impelled them to resort to revolution and a separation from the 
Union, and we would applaud them, and wish them God-speed in 
the adoption of such a remedy." 

The Eochester Union, two or three days later, said : 
" Eestricting our remarks to actual violations of the Constitution, 
the North has led the way, and for a long period has been the sole 
offender or aggressor." ..." Owing to their peculiar circum- 
stances, the Southern States cannot retaliate upon the North 
without tahing ground for secession." 

STARTED BY MR. SEAV7ARD. 

The New York Express said, on April 15th, 1861, (the day after 
the surrender of Sumter) : 

" The ' Irrepressible conflict ' started by Mr. Seward, and 
endorsed by the Eepublican party, has at length attained to its 
logical foreseen result. That conflict undertaken ' for the sake of 
humanity ' culminates now in inhumanity itself." ..." The 
people of the United States, it must be borne in mind, petitioned, 
begged and implored these men (Lincoln, Seward, et id), who are 



56 Official Reports of the 

become their accidental masters, to give them an opportunity to 
be heard before this unnatural strife was pushed to a bloody extreme, 
but there petitions ivere all spurned with contempt," &c. 

Mr. George Lunt, a Boston lawyer, in an able work, published in 
1866, entitled " The Origin of the Late War," from which we have 
before quoted, says of the action of the Northern people : 

" But by incessantly working on the popular mind, through every 
channel through which it could be possibly reached, a state of feeling 
was produced which led to the enactment of Personal Liberty bills 
by one after another of the Northern Legislative Assemblies. At 
length fourteen of the sixteen Free States had provided statutes 
which rendered any attempt to execute the fugitive slave act so 
difficult as to be practically impossible, and placed each of those 
States in an attitude of virtual resistance to the laws of the United 
States." 

If these acts were not nullification, what were they ? 

LINCOLN QUOTED AS PROOF. 

We propose to introduce as our last piece of evidence that which 
it seems to us should satisfy the mind of the most critical and 
exacting, and which establishes, beyond all future cavil, which side 
was the aggressor in bringing on this conflict. We propose now to 
introduce Mr. Lincoln himself. In the latest life of this remarkable 
man, written by Ida M. Tarbell, and published by Doubleday & 
McClure Co. in 1900, she introduces a statement made to her by the 
late Joseph Medill, editor of the Chicago Tribune, of what took 
place between Mr. Lincoln and a Committee of which he (Medill) 
was a member, sent from Chicago to Washington, to intercede with 
the authorities there to be relieved from sending more troops from 
Cook county, as was required by the new draft Just then ordered, and 
which, as we know produced riots in several parts of the jSTorth. The 
author makes Medill tell how his Committee first applied for relief 
to Mr. Stanton, and was refused, how they then went to Mr. Lincoln, 
who went with them to see Stanton again, and there listened to the 
reasons assigned pro and con for a change of the draft. He then 
says: 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 57 

" I shall never forget how he (Lincoln) suddenly lifted his head 
and turned on us a black and frowning face : 

" ^Gentlemen/ he said, in a voice full of bitterness, 'After Boston, 
Chicago has been the chief instrument in bringing this war on the 
country. The Northwest has opposed the South, as ISTew England 
has opposed the South. It is you who are largely responsible for 
making blood flow as it has. You called for war until we had it. 
You called for emancipation, and I have given it to you. "W^iat- 
ever you have asked, you have had. Now you come here begging to 
be let off. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. I have a right 
to expect better things of you. Go home and raise your 6,000 
extra men.' " 

And Medill adds that he was completely silenced by the truth of 
Lincoln's accusation, and that they went home and raised the 6,000 
additional troops. We could multiply testimony of this kind al- 
most indifinitely; but surely we have introduced enough not only 
to prove that the statement made by Mr. Phillips is utterly without 
foundation, but to show further, by the testimony of our quondam 
enemies themselves, that they were the aggressors from every point 
of view, and that the South only resisted when, as the New York 
Express said of it at the time, it had, " in self-preservation, been 
driven to the wall, and forced to proclaim its independence." 

Virginia's efforts for peace. 

"We can only briefly allude to the noble efforts made by Virginia, 
through the " Peace Congress," to avert the conflict, and how these 
efforts were rejected almost with contempt by the North. Mr. 
Lunt, speaking of this noble action on the part of the " Mother of 
Presidents," as he calls Virginia, says : 

" It was like a firebrand suddenly presented at the portals of the 
Republican Magazine, and the whole energy of the radicals was at 
once enlisted to make it of no effect." 

Several of the Northern States sent no Commissioners to this 
Congress at all; others, like Massachusetts, only sent them at the 
last moment, and then sent only such as were known to be opposed 
to any compromise or conciliation. 



58 Official Reports of the 

The following letter of Senator Chandler, of Michigan, indicates 
too clearly the feelings of the Eepublican party at that time to 
require comment. It is dated February 11th, 1861, a week after 
Congress assembled, and addressed to the Governor of his State. 
He says : 

" Governor Bingham (the other Senator from Michigan) and my- 
self telegraphed to you on Saturday at the request of Massachusetts 
and ]^ew York, to send delegates to the Peace Compromise Con- 
gress. They admit that we were right and they were wrong, that no 
Republican State should have sent delegates; but they are here and 
can't get away. Ohio, Indiana and Ehode Island are caving in, 
and there is some danger of Illinois ; and now they beg us, for God's 
sake to come to their rescue and save the Republican party from 
rupture. I hope you will send stiff-bached men or none. The 
whole thing was gotten up against my judgment and advice, and 
will end in thin smoke. Still I hope as a matter of courtesy to 
some of our erring brethren, that you will send the delegates. 
" Truly your friend, 

" Z. Chandler." 

"His Excellency, Austin Blair." 

" P. S. — Some of the Manufacturing States think that a fight 
would be awful. Without a little blood-letting this Union will 
not, in my estimation, be worth a curse." 

Mr. Lunt says : 

'' If this truly eloquent and statesmanlike epistle does not express 
the views of the Eepublican managers at the time, it does at least 
indicate with sufficient clearness their relations towards the ' Peace 
Conference ' and the determined purpose of the radicals to have 
' a fight,' and it furthermore foreshadows the actual direction given 
to future events." 

HELD OUT TO THE LAST. 

But I cannot protract this discussion further. Suffice it to say, 
that Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas did not 
secede until Mr. Lincoln had actually declared war against the 
seven Cotton and Gulf States, then forming the Southern Confed- 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 59 

eracy, and called on these four States to furnish their quota of the 
seventy-five thousand troops called for by him to coerce these States. 
This act, on Mr. Lincoln's part, was without any real authority of 
law, and nothing short of the most flagrant usurpation, Congress 
alone having the power to declare war under the Constitution. He 
refused to convene Congress to consider the grave issues then con- 
fronting the country. Wlien it did assemble, on the 4th of 
July, 18G1, he tried to have his illegal usurpation validated; but 
Congress, although then having a Eepublican majority, refused to 
consider the resolution introduced for that purpose. The four 
States above named, led by Virginia, only left the union then, after 
exhausting every honorable effort to remain in it, and only when 
they had to determine to fight with or against their sisters of the 
South. This was the dire alternative presented to them, and how 
could they hesitate longer what to do? 

In the busy, bustling, practical times in which we live, it will 
doubtless be asked by many, and, with some show of plausibility, 
why we gather up, and present to the world, all this array of testi- 
mony concerning a cause which is almost universally known as the 
" lost cause," and a conflict which ended more than thirty-five 
years ago ? Does it not, they ask, only tend to rekindle the embers 
of sectional strife, and thus can only do harm ? You, our comrades, 
know that such is not our purpose or desire. Our reasons have been 
very briefly stated. It is the truth that constrains. The apologists 
for the North, using all the vehicles of falsehood, are insistent in 
spreading the poison; with it the antidote must go. If others 
attribute to us wrong motives in this matter, we are sorry, but we 
have no apologies to make to any such. We admit that the Confed- 
erate war is ended ; that slavery and secession are, forever dead, and 
we have no desire to revive them. "We recognize, too, that this 
whole country is one country and our country. We desire that, 
government and people doing that which is right, it may become in 
truth a glorious land, and may remain a glorious inheritance to 
our children and our children's children. But we believe the true 
way to preserve it as such an inheritance is to perpetuate in it the 
principles for which the Confederate soldier fought — the principles 



60 Official Reports of the 

of Constitutional liberty, and of local self government — or, as Mr. 
Davis puts it, " the rights of their sires won in the Eevolution, the 
State sovereignty, freedom and independence, vi^hich were left to us, 
as an inheritance, and to their posterity forever." This definition, a 
distinguished Massachusetts writer says, is "the whole case, and 
not only a statement, but a complete justification of the Confederate 
cause, to all who are acquainted with the origin and character of the 
American Union." 

Yes, we repeat, this is our country, and of it, we would say, with 
Virginia's dead Laureate at the Yorktown celebration : 

" Give us back the ties of Yorktown, 
Perish all the modern hates. 
Let us stand together, brothers, 

In defiance of the Pates, 
For the safety of the Union 
Is the safety of the States." 

At Appomattox, the Confederate flag was furled, and we are con- 
tent to let it stay so forever. There is enough of glory and sacrifice 
encircled in its folds, not only to enshrine it in our hearts forever; 
but the very trump of fame must be silenced when it ceases to pro- 
claim the splendid achievements over which that flag floated. 

BATTLE-FIELD, NOT A FORUM. 

But Appomattox was not a Judicial forum; it was only a battle- 
field, a test of physical force, where the starving remnant of the 
Army of Northern Virginia, " wearied with victory," surrendered to 
" overwhelming numbers and resources." We make no appeal from 
that judgment, on the issue of force. But when we see the victors 
in that contest, meeting year by year and using the superior means 
at their command, to publish to the world, that they were rigM and 
that we were wrong in that contest, saying that we were " Eebels " 
and " traitors," in defending our homes and firesides against their 
cruel invasion, that we had no legal right to withdraw from the 
Union, when we only asked to be let alone, and charge that we brought 
on that war ; we say, when these, and other wicked and false charges 
are brought against us from year to year, and the attempt is systema- 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 61 

tically made to teach our children that these things are true, and, 
therefore, that we do not deserve their sympathy and respect 
because of our alleged wicked and unjustifiable course in that war 
and in bringing it on — then it becomes our duty, not only to our- 
selves and to our children, but to the thousands of brave men and 
women who gave their lives a " free-will offering " in defence of 
the principles for which we fought, to vindicate the justice of our 
cause, and to do this, we have to appeal only to the bar of truth and 
of justice. 

THE TRUTH WILL LIVE. 

We know the Muse of History may be, and often is, startled from 
her propriety for a time; but she will soon regain her equipoise. 
Our late enemy has unwittingly furnished the great reservoir from 
which the truth can be drawn, not only in what they have said about 
us and our cause, both before and since the war; but in the more 
than one hundred volumes of the official records published under 
the authority of Congress. We are content to await, " with calm 
corLfidence," the results of the appeal to these sources. 

We have, as already stated in tliis report, attempted to vindicate 
our cause, by referring to testimony furnished almost entirely from 
the speeches and writings of our adversaries, both before and since 
the war. We believe we have succeeded in doing this. Nay, the 
judgment, both of the justice of our cause, and the conduct of the 
war, on our part, has been written for us, and that too by the hand 
of a Massachusetts man. He says of us : 

" Such exalted character and achievement are not all in vain. 
Though the Confederacy fell as an actual physical power, she lives 
illustrated by them, eternally in her just cause — the cause of Consti- 
tutional liberty/' 

Then, in the language of Virginia's Laureate again, we say : 

" Then stand up. oh my countrymen, 

And unto God give thanks 
On mountains and on hillsides 

And by sloping river banks, 
Thank God, that you were worthy 

Of the grand Confederate ranks." 



63 Official Reports of the 

Since your last year's Keport was mainly directed to tlie vindica- 
tion of our people from the false charge that we went to war to 
perpetuate slavery, we have thought we could render no more valu- 
able service in this Report, than to show — (1) That we were right 
on the real question involved in the contest; and (2) That not- 
withstanding this, and the further fact, that the South had never 
violated the Constitution, whilst the North had confessedly re- 
peatedly done so ; nay, that fourteen of the sixteen Free States had 
not only nullified, but had defied acts of Congress passed in pur- 
suance of the Constitution, and the decisions of the Supreme Court 
sustaining those acts, and that the North, and not the South, had 
brought on the war. We believe v/e have established these proposi- 
tions by evidence furnished by our late adversaries; and the last, 
by that of Mr. Lincoln himself. On this testimony, we think we 
can afford to rest our case. And we believe that the evidence 
furnished in our last Report, and in this, will establish the justice, 
both of our cause and of the conduct of our people in reference to 
the war. 

HISTORIES IN OUR SCHOOLS. 

The several histories, used in schools, were so fully discussed in 
our last Report, that we deem it unnecessary to add anything 
further on that subject. We are gratified to be able to report that 
the two works adversely criticised in our last Report, viz. : Fiske's 
and Cooper, Estill & Lemon's Histories, respectively, have found 
but little favor with the School Boards of our State. This is 
shown by the fact that out of the 118 counties and corporations in 
the State but one has adopted Fiske's, and that one has purchased 
a supply of Jones' History to be used by the pupils in studying the 
history pertaining to the war. That Cooper, Estill & Lemon's 
History is now only used in six places ; whilst all the other counties 
and corporations (with the exception of one, which uses Han- 
sell's) use either Mrs. Lee's or Dr. Jones' Histories, or the two con- 
jointty, the relative use of these being as follows: Lee's, 68; 
Jones', 25; Lee and Jones, conjointly, 17. 

It will thus be seen, that the danger apprehended from the use 



History Committee, Grand Gamp, C. V. 63 

of the two works criticised, is reduced to the minimum. But we 
must not be satisfied until that danger is entirely removed by the 
abolishment of these books from the list of those adopted for use 
by our State Board of Education. We are informed by this Board 
that it can do nothing in this direction pending the existing 
contracts with the publishers of these works, which contracts 
expire on July 31, 1902. But we are also informed, that 
under the provisons of a law passed prior to the making of these 
contracts, it is competent for County and City School Boards to 
change the text-books on the history of the United States whenever 
they deem it proper to do so. We would, therefore, urge these 
local boards to stop the use of the two works criticised in our last 
report, at once. 

COMPOSED OF GOOD MEN. 

It is almost gratifying to us to state what you, perhaps, already 
know, that all three of the members of our State Board of Educa- 
tion, are not only native and true Virginians, but men devoted to 
the principles for which we fought, and that they, and each of them, 
stand ready to co-operate with us, as far as they can legally and 
properly do so, in having our children taught " the truth, the whole 
truth and nothing but the truth," in regard to the war, and the 
causes which led to it. We would ash for notJiing more, and we 
should ask for nothing less, from any source. 

We repeat the recommendation heretofore made, both to this Camp 
and to the United Confederate Veterans, that separate chairs of 
American history be established in all our principal Southern Col- 
leges, so that the youth of our land may be taught the truth as to 
the formation of this government, and of the principles for which 
their fathers fought for the establishment and maintenance of Con- 
stitutional liberty in our land. 

Our attention has recently been called to the fact that in none of 
the histories used in our schools, is any mention made (certainly 
none compared with what it deserves) of the splendid services 
rendered our cause by the devoted and gallant band led by Col. John 
S. Mosby. This organization, whilst forming a part of Gen'l Lee's 



64 Official Reports of the 

army, and at all times subject to his orders, was to all intents and 
purposes an independent command. We believe, that for its num- 
bers and resources, it performed as gallant, faithful and efficient 
services as any other command in any part of our armies, and that 
no history of our cause is at all complete, that fails to give some 
general idea, at the least, of the deeds of devotion and daring per- 
formed by this gallant band and its intrepid leader. 

UNION OF OUR FATHERS. 

We sometimes hear (not often, it is true, but still too often) 
from those who were once Confederate soldiers themselves, or from 
the children of Confederates, such expressions as — " We are glad 
the South did not succeed in her struggle for independence." " We 
are glad that slavery is abolished," &c. 

We wish to express our sincere regret, that any of our people 
should so far forget themselves as to indulge in any such 
remarks. In the first place, we think they are utterly uncalled for, 
and in bad taste. In the second place, to some extent, they reflect 
upon the Confederate cause, and those who defended that cause; 
and in the third place, it seems to us, if our otvn self-respect doea 
not forever seal our lips against such expressions, that the memories 
of a sacred past, the blod of the thousands and tens of thousands 
of those who died, the tears, the toils, the wounds, and the innumer- 
able sacrifices of both the living and the dead, that were freely given 
for the success of that cause, would be an appeal against such expres- 
sions, that could not be resisted. If all that is meant by the first of 
these expressions is, that the speaker means to say, " He is glad that 
the * Union of our Fathers ' is preserved," then we can unite with 
him in rejoicing at this, if this is the " Union of our Fathers," as 
to which we have the gravest doubts. But be this as it may, we 
have never believed that the subjugation of the South or the success 
of the North, was either necessary, or the best way to preserve and 
perpetuate the " Union of our Fathers." 

On the secession of Mississippi, her Convention sent a Commis- 
sioner from that State to Maryland, who, at that time, it may be 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 65 

sure, expressed the real objects sought to be attained by secession by 
the great body of the Southern people. He said : 

" Secession is not intended to break up the present Government, 
but to perpetuate it. We do not propose to go out by way of destroy- 
ing the Union, as our fathers gave it to us, but we go out for the 
purpose of getting further guarantees and security for our rights,'* 
&c. 

MIGHT HAVE BEEN BETTER. 

And so we believe, that with the success of the South, the " Union 
of our Fathers," which the South was the principal factor in form- 
ing, and to which she was far more attached than the North, would 
have been restored and re-established ; that in this Union the South 
would have been again the dominant people, the controlling power, 
and that its administration of the Government in that union, would 
have been along constitutional and Just lines, and not through Mili- 
tary Districts, attempted Confiscations, Force Bills, and other 
oppressive and illegal methods, such as characterized the conduct of 
the North for four years after the war, in its alleged restoration of 
a Union which it denied had ever been dissolved. 

As to the abolition of slavery : Whilst we know of no one in the 
South who does not rejoice that this has ben accomplished, we 
know of no one, anywhere, so lost to every sense of right and justice 
as not to condemn the iniquitious way in which this was done. 
But we feel confident that no matter how the war had ended, it 
would have resulted in the freedom of the slave, and as surely with 
the success of the South as with that of the North, although perhaps 
not so promptly. 

We are warranted in this conclusion, from several considera- 
tions — (1) It was conclusively shown in our last Eeport, that we 
did not fight for the continuation of slavery, and that a large 
majority of our soldiers were non-slaveholders; (2) That our great 
leader. General Lee, had freed his slaves before the war, whilst 
General Grant held on to his until they were free by the Emancipa- 
tion Proclamation; and (3) Whilst Mr. Lincoln issued that procla- 
mation, he said in his first inaugural : 
4 



66 Official Reports of the 

" I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the 
institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have 
no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." 

EMANCIPATION OF SLAVES. 

With the success of the South, we believe emancipation would 
have followed by some method of compensation for the property 
rights in slaves, just as the North had received compensation for 
the same property, when held by it. Certainly it would not have 
been accomplished by putting the whites under the heel of the blacJcs, 
as was attempted by the North. In the contest between Lincoln 
and McClellan, in 1864, the people of the North were nearly equally 
divided on the issues involved in the war, Lincoln having received 
2,200,000 votes in that contest, whilst McClellan received 1,800,000 
fin round numbers). We know, too, that Lincoln was not only a 
" minority " President, but a big " minority " President, his op- 
ponents having received a million more votes in 1860 than he 
received. So that, with a divided North, and a united South, on 
the principles for which we contended, if the South had been suc- 
cessful in the war, her people would have dominated and controlled 
this country for the last thirty-five years, as they did the first seventy 
years of its existence, and, in our opinion, both the country and 
the South would have been benefited by that domination and con- 
trol. 

Again, think of the difference between the South being made to 
pay the war debt and pensions of the North, and the latter having 
to pay those of the former. And again, we reason, that if the 
South, in all the serfdom and oppression in which it was left by 
the results of the war, has accomplished what it has — (it has 
made greater material advances in proportion than any other sec- 
tion) — what could it not have done, if it had been the con- 
queror instead of the conquered? 

We simply allude to these material facts, with the hope that these, 
and every consideration dictated by self-respect, love of, and loyalty 
to, a sacred and glorious past, will prevent a repetition of the 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 67 

expressions of which we, as representatives of the Confederate cause 
and people, justly complain, and against which we earnestly protest. 
All of which is respectfully submitted. 

Geoege L. Christian, 

Acting Chairman History Committee. 



REPORT 

BY 

JUDGE GEO. L. CHRISTIAN, 

Chairman. 



October 25, 1901. 



A Contrast Between the Way the War was 
Conducted by the Federals and tlie Way it 
was Conducted by the Confederates, drawn 
Almost Entirely from Federal Sources. 



REPORT OF OCTOBER 25, 1901. 



To the Grand Camp of Confederate Veterans of Virginia: 

Before entering upon the discussion of the subject selected for 
consideration in this report, your Committee begs leave to tender 
its thanks to the Camp, and to the public for the many expressions 
it has received of their appreciation of its last two reports. These 
expressions have come from every section of the country, and they 
are not only most gratifying, showing as they do, the importance 
of the work of this Camp in establishing the justice of the Confed- 
erate cause ; but that this work is also causing the truth concerning 
that cause to be taught to our children, which was not the case 
until these Confederate Camps effected that great result. Our 
report of 1899, prepared by your late distinguished and lamented 
Chairman, Dr. Hunter McGuire, was directed mainly to a criticism 
of certain histories then used in our schools, and to demonstrate 
the fact that the South did not go to war either to maintain or to 
perpetuate the institution of slavery, as our enemies have tried so 
hard to make the world believe was the case. That of 1900 was 
directed — 

(1) To establish the right of secession (the real question at issue 
in the war) by Northern testimony alone, and 

(2) To establish the fact that the North was the aggressor in 
bringing on the war, and hy the same hind of testimony. 

These two reports have been published, the first for two, and the 
second for one year, and as far as we know, no fact contended for 
in either has been attempted to be controverted. We feel justified, 
therefore, in claiming that these facts have been established. 

HOW THE WAR WAS CONDUCTED. 

Having then, we think, established the justice of the Confederate 
Cause, and that the Northern people were responsible for, and the 
aggressors in bringing on the war, and both of these facts by testi- 

[71] 



72 Official Reports of the 

mony drawn almost exclusively from Northern sources, it is only 
left for us to consider how the war, thus forced upon the South by 
the North, was conducted by the respective combatants through 
their representatives, both in the Cabinet and in the field? We 
fully recognize that within the limits of this report it is impossible 
to do more than to " touch the fringe," as it were, of this important 
inquiry. The details of the horrors of the four years of that war 
would fill many, many volumes, and it is not our purpose or desire 
to go fully into any such sad and harrowing recital. We propose, 
therefore, only to give the principles of civilized warfare as adopted 
by the Federal authorities for the government of their armies in 
the field during the war, and then cite some of the most flagrant 
violations of those principles by some of the most distinguished 
representatives of that government in the war waged by it against 
the South. Of course, in doing this we shall have to refer to some 
things very familiar to all of us; but the repetition of them in this 
report would nevertheless seem necessary and proper to its com- 
pleteness. 

In performing this distasteful task we wish, in the beginning, to 
disclaim any and all purpose or wish on our part to reopen the 
wounds or to rekindle the feelings of bitterness engendered by that 
unholy and unhappy strife. As we said in our last report, we 
recognize that this whole country is one country and our country, 
and we of the South are as true to it, and will do as much to uphold 
its honor and defend its rights, as those of any other section. But 
we are also true to a sacred past, a past which had principles for 
which thousands of our comrades suffered and died, and which are 
living principles to-day — principles which we fought to maintain, 
and for which our whole people, almost without exception, willingly 
and heroically offered their lives, their blood and their fortunes; 
and whilst we do not propose to live in that past, we do propose that 
the principles of that past shall live in us, and that we will transmit 
these principles to our children and their descendants to the latest 
generations yet unborn. We believe that only by doing this can we 
and they make good citizens of the republic, as founded by our 
fathers, and that not to do this would he false to the memory of our 
dead and to ourselves. 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 73 

Then let us enquire, first, what were the rules adopted by the 
Federals for the government of their armies in war? The most 
important of these are as follows: 

( 1 ) " Private property, unless forfeited by crimes, or by offences 
of the owner against the safety of the army, or the dignity of the 
United States, and after conviction of the owner by court martial, 
can be seized only by way of military necessity for the support or 
other benefit of the army of the United States." 

(2) "All wanton violence committed against persons in the 
invaded country; all destruction of property not commanded by 
the authorized officer ; all robbery ; all pillage or sacking, even after 
taking a place by main force ; all rape, wounding, maiming, or kill- 
ing of such inhabitants, are prohibited under penalty of death, or 
such other severe punishment as may seem adequate for the gravity 
of the offense." 

(3) "Crimes punishable by all penal codes, such as arson, mur- 
der, maiming, assaults, highway robbery, theft, burglary, fraud, 
forgery and rape, if committed by an American soldier in a hostile 
country against its inhabitants, are not only punishable, as at home, 
but in all cases in which death is not inflicted, the severer punish- 
ment shall be preferred, because the criminal has, as far as in him 
lay, prostituted the power conferred on a man of arms, and prosti- 
tuted the dignity of the United States." 

Now, as we have said, these were the important provisions adopted 
by the Federals for the government of their armies in war. 

General McClellan, a gentleman, a trained and educated soldier, 
recognized these principles from the beginning, and acted on them. 
On July 7, 1862, he wrote to Mr. Lincoln from Harrison's Landing, 
saying, among other things : 

"This rebellion has assumed the character of a war; as such 
it should be conducted upon the highest principles of Christian 
civilization. It should not be a war looking to the subjugation 
of the people of any State in any event. It should not be at all 
a war upon populations, but against armed forces and political 
organizations. Neither confiscation of property, political execu- 
tions of persons, territorial organization of States, nor forcible 
abolition of slavery, should be contemplated for a moment." 



74 Official Reports of the 

" In prosecuting the war, all private property and unarmed per- 
sons, should be strictly protected, subject only to the necessity of 
military operations. All property taken for military use should 
be paid or receipted for; pillage and waste should be treated as 
high crimes ; all unnecessary trespass sternly prohibited, and offen- 
sive demeanor by the military towards citizens promptly rebuked." 

See 2 Am. Conflict (Greeley), p. 248. 

The writer's home was visited by the Army of the Potomac, 
both under McClellan and under Grant. At the time McClellan 
was in command guards were stationed to protect the premises, with 
orders to shoot any soldier caught depredating, and but little dam- 
age was actually done; none with the consent or connivance of the 
commanding general. But when the same army came, commanded 
by Grant, every house on the place, except one negro cabin, was 
burned to the ground; all stock and everything else of any value 
was carried off. The occupants were only women, children and ser- 
vants; nearly all the servants were carried off; one of the ladies 
was so shocked at the outrages committed as to cause her death, 
and the other and the children were turned out of doors without 
shelter or food, and with only the clothing they had on. So that 
the writer has had a real experience of the difference between 
civilized and harharous warfare. To show how little the advice of 
McClellan, as to the principles on which the war should be con- 
ducted, was heeded at Washington, and it would seem stimulated in 
an opposite course by his suggestions, we find in two weeks from 
the date of his letter to Mr. Lincoln, just quoted — viz., on July 20, 
1862 — that General John Pope, commanding the "Army of Vir- 
ginia," issued the following order : 

GENERAL POPE's ORDERS. 

( 1 ) " The people of the Valley of the Shenandoah and through- 
out the regions of the operations of this army, living along the lines 
of railroad and telegraph and along the routes of travel in rear of 
the United States forces, are notified that they will be held responsi- 
ble for any injury done to the track, line or road, or for any attack 
upon trains or straggling soldiers by bands of guerrillas in their 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 75 

neighborhood." * * * * « Safety of life and property of all 
persons living in the rear of our advancing armies depends upon 
the maintenance of peace and quiet among themselves, and of the 
unmolested movement through their midst of all pertaining to the 
military service. They are to understand distinctly that this 
security of travel is their only warrant of safety. It is therefore 
ordered, that whenever a railroad, wagon road, or telegraph is 
injured by parties of guerrillas, the citizens living within five miles 
of the spot shall be turned out in mass to repair the damage, and 
shall, besides, pay to the United States, in money or in property, 
to be levied by military force, the full amount of the pay and sub- 
sistence of the whole force necessary to coerce the performance 
of the work during the time occupied in completing it. If a 
soldier or a legitimate follower of the army, be fired upon from any 
house, the house shall be razed to the ground, and the inliabitants 
sent prisoners to the headquarters of the army. If an outrage 
occurs at any place distant from settlements, the people within five 
miles around shall be held accountable, and made to pay an indem- 
nity sufficient for the case." 

We defy investigation in the history of modern warfare to find 
anything emanating from a general commanding an army as 
cowardly and as cruel as this order. Just think of it : The women, 
children and non-combatants, living within five miles of the rear 
of an invading army, ordered to protect it from the incursions of 
the opposing army, or upon failure to do this, whether from 
inability or any other cause, to forfeit their lives or their property. 

Again, this same commander, on July 23, 1862, issued the fol- 
lowing order : 

" Commanders of army corps, divisions, brigades and detached 
commands, will proceed immediately to arrest all disloyal male 
citizens within their lines, or within their reach, in rear of their 
respective stations. Such as are willing to ta'ke the oath of alle- 
giance to the United States, and will furnish sufficient security for 
its observance, shall be permitted to remain at their homes and pur- 
sue, in good faith, their accustomed avocations. Those who refuse 
shall be conducted south, beyond the extreme pickets of this army, 



76 Official Reports of the 

and be notified that if found anywhere within our lines, or at any 
point within our rear, they will be considered spies and subjected 
to the extreme rigor of military law" (i. e., death by hanging). 

See "The Army Under Pope," by Ropes, pp. 175-6-7. 

This last order Mr. John C. Eopes, of Boston, a distinguished 
Northern writer, one generally fairer to the South than others who 
have written from that locality, criticises most harshly, and he 
does this, too, although he is about the only apologist, as far as we 
have seen, of this bombastic and incompetent officer. 

General Steinwehr, one of Pope's brigadiers, seized innocent and 
peaceful inhabitants and held them as hostages to the end that they 
should be murdered in cold blood should any of his soldiers be 
killed by unknown persons, whom he designated as " bushwhackers." 

On the very day of the signing of the cartel for the exchange of 
prisoners between the Federal and Confederate authorities (July 
22, 1862), the Federal Secretary of War, by order of Mr. Lincoln, 
issued an order to the military commanders in Virginia, South 
Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas 
and Arkansas, directing them to seize and use any property belong- 
ing to the inhabitants of the Confederacy, which might be " neces- 
sary or convenient for their several commands," and no provision 
was made for any compensation to the owners of private property 
thus seized and appropriated. 

This order was such a flagrant violation of the rules of civilized 
warfare — those adopted by the Federal Government itself, as here- 
inbefore quoted — that the Confederate Government sought to pre- 
vent it being carried into execution by issuing a general order, dated 
August 1, 1862, denouncing this order of the Federal Secretary, 
and those of Pope and Steinwehr, as " acts of savage cruelty," vio- 
lative " of all rules and usages of war," and as converting the 
'' hostilities hitherto waged against armed forces into a campaign of 
robbery and murder against unarmed citizens and peaceful tillers 
of the soil." And by way of retaliation, declared that Pope and 
his commissioned officers were not to be considered as soldiers, and 
therefore not entitled to the benefit of the cartel for the parole of 
future prisoners of war, and ordered that if Pope, Steinwehr, or 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 77 

any of their commissioned officers, were captured, they should be 
kept in close confinement as long as the foregoing orders remained 
in force. 

(See 1 South. His. Society Papers, 302-3.) 

General Eobert E. Lee, on receiving this order from the Con- 
federate authorities, at once sent a communication to " The General 
Commanding the United States Army at Washington," in which, 
referring to these orders of Pope and the Federal War Department, 
he said: 

" Some of the military authorities of the United States seem to 
suppose that their end will be better attained by a savage war, in 
which no quarter is to be given and no age or sex will be spared, 
than by such hostilities as are alone recognized to be lawful in 
modern times. We find ourselves driven by our enemies by steady 
progress towards a practice which we abhor, and which we are vainly 
struggling to avoid." 

He then says : 

" Under these circumstances, this government has issued the 
accompanying general order (that of August 1, 1862), which I 
am directed by the President to transmit to you, recognizing Major- 
General Pope and his commissioned officers to be in a position which 
they have chosen for themselves — that of robbers and murderers — 
and not that of public enemies, entitled, if captured, to be treated 
as prisoners of war." 

At this day it may be safely said, that there are few, if any, 
either at the North or in the South, who will question either that 
General Lee knew the rules of civilized warfare, or that he would 
have denounced those who were guilty of violating these rules as 
" robbers and murderers," had they not been justly entitled to this 
distinction. And let it be distinctly borne in mind, that the order 
of the Federal Secretary of War was issued hy order of the Presi- 
dent, Mr. Lincoln, and if he ever rebuked Pope or Steinwehr, or 
any of the others, to whom we shall hereafter refer, for their out- 
rages and cruelties to the Southern people, the record, as far as we 
can find it, is silent on that subject. 



78 Official Reports of the 

GENEEAL MILEOY's OEDER. 

On the 28th November, 1862, General E. H. Milroy had an order 
sent to Mr. Adam Harper, a man 82 years old, and a cripple, one 
who had served as a soldier in the war of 1812, and who was a son 
of a Eevolutionary soldier, who had served throughout that war, 
which was as follows : 
"Mr. Adam Harper: 

" Sir, — In consequence of certain robberies which have been 
committed on Union citizens of this county by bands of guerrillas, 
you are hereby assessed to the amount of ($285.00) two hundred and 
eighty-five dollars, to make good their losses, and upon your failure 
to comply with the above assessment by the 8th day of December, 
the following order has been issued to me by General E. H. Milroy : 

" You are to hum their houses, seize all their cattle and shoot 
them. You will be sure that you strictly carry out this order. You 
will inform the inhabitants for ten or fifteen miles around your 
camp, on all the roads approaching the town upon which the enemy 
may approach, that they must dash in and give you notice, an,d 
upon any one failing to do so, you will burn their houses and shoot 
the men. 

" By order of Brigadier-General E. H, Milroy. 

"H. Kellog," ''Captain Commanding Post." 

Could the most brutal savagery of any age exceed the unreasoning 
cruelty of this order. (See 1. South. His. Society Papers, p. 231.) 

GENERAL SHERMAN^S CONDUCT. 

But we must go on. In the earlier part of the war, General 
William T. Sherman knew and recognized the rules adopted by 
his government for the conduct of its armies in the field; and so, 
on September 29, 1861, he wrote to General Eobert Anderson, at 
Louisville, Ky., saying, among other things : 

" I am sorry to report, that in spite of my orders and entreaties, 
our troops are committing depredations that will ruin our cause. 
Horses and wagons have been seized, cattle, sheep, hogs, chickens 
taken by our men, some of whom wander for miles around. I am 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 79 

doing, and have done, all in my power to stop this, but the men 
are badly disciplined and give little heed to my orders or those of 
their own regimental officers." 

(See Sherman's Eaid, by Boynton, page 23.) 

Later on General Sherman said : " War is hell." If we could 
record here all the testimony in our possession, from the people 
of Georgia and South Carolina, who had the misfortune to live 
along the line of his famous " march to the sea," during nearly 
the whole length of which he was warring against, and depre- 
dating on, women, children, servants, old men, and other non- 
combatants (as to which he wrote in his telegram to Grant, " I can 
make this march and make Georgia howl," Boynton, page 129), it 
would show that he had certainly contributed all in his power to 
make war " Hell," as he termed it ; and has Justly earned the dis- 
tinction of being called the ruling genius of this creation. 

We will first let General Sherman himself tell what was done 
by him and his men on this famous, or rather infamous, march. 
He says of it in his oflScial report : 

"We consumed the corn and fodder in the region of country 
thirty miles on either side of a line from Atlanta to Savannah; 
also the sweet potatoes, hogs, sheep and poultry, and carried off 
more than ten thousand horses and mules. I estimate the dam- 
age done to the State of Georgia at one hundred million dollars, 
at least twenty millions of which enured to our benefit, and the 
remainder was simply waste and destruction." 

But we will introduce other witnesses, and these some of his 
own soldiers, who accompanied him on his march ; Captain Daniel 
Oakley, of the Second Eegiment, Massachusetts Volunteers, in 
*' Battles and Leaders," says this : 

" It was sad to see the wanton destruction of property, which 
was the work of ' bummers,' who were marauding through the 
country committing every sort of outrage. There was no re- 
straint, except with the column or the regular foraging parties. 
* * The country was necessarily left to take care of itself and 
became a howling waste. The ' Coffee Coolers ' of the Army of 
the Potomac were archangels compared to our ' bummers,' who 



80 Official Reports of the 

often fell to the tender mercies of Wheeler's cavalry, and were never 
heard of again, meeting a fate richly deserved." 

Another Northern soldier, writing for the " Detroit Free Press," 
gives the following graphic account : After describing the burning 
of Marietta, in which the writer says, among other things, " soldiers 
rode from house to house, entered without ceremony, and kindled 
fires in garrets and closets and stood by to see that they were not 
extinguished." He then further says: 

" Had one been able to climb to such a height at Atlanta as 
to enable him to see for forty miles around the day Sherman 
marched out, he would have been appalled at the destruction. 
Hundreds of houses had been burned, every rod of fence destroyed, 
nearly every fruit tree cut down, and the face of the country so 
changed that one born in that section could scarcely recognize it. 
The vindictiveness of war would have trampled the very earth out 
of sight had such a thing been possible." 

Again he says : 

"At the very beginning of the campaign at Dalton, the Fed- 
eral soldiery had received encouragement to become vandals. * * 
When Sherman cut loose from Atlanta everybody had license to 
throw off restraint and make Georgia ' drain the bitter cup.' The 
Federal who wants to learn what it was to license an army to be- 
come vandals should mount a horse at Atlanta and follow Sher- 
man's route for fifty miles. He can hear stories from the lips 
of women that would make him ashamed of the flag that waved 
over him as he went into battle. When the army had passed noth- 
ing was left but a trail of desolation and despair. No houses 
escaped robbery, no woman escaped insult, no building escaped the 
firebrand, except by some strange interposition. War may license 
an army to subsist on the enemy, but civilized warfare stops at live 
stock, forage and provisions. It does not enter the houses of the 
sick and helpless and rob women of their finger rings and carry off 
their clothing." 

He then tells of the " deliberate burning of Atlanta " by Sher- 
man's order, of the driving out from the city of its whole popula- 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 81 

tion of all ages, sexes, and conditions in the fields of a desolated 
country to starve and die, as far as he knew or cared. You have 
only to read these recitals and you have the picture which Sherman 
made and which he truly denominated " Hell." 

The correspondence between Mayor Calhoun and two council- 
men of Atlanta, representing to General Sherman the frightful 
suffering that would be visited on the people of that city by the 
execution of his inhuman order, and General Sherman's reply, can 
be found in the second volume of Sherman's Memoirs, at pages 
124-5 ; we can only extract one or two paragi'aphs from each. The 
letter of the former says, among other things : 

" Many poor women are in advanced state of pregnancy, others 
now having young children, and whose husbands, for the greater 
part, are either in the army, prisoners, or dead. Some say, I have 
such a sick one at my house, who will wait on them when I am 
gone? Others say, what are we to do? We have no house to go 
to, and no means to buy, build or rent any; no parents, relatives or 
friends to go to." 

" This being so (they say) how is it possible for the people still 
here (mostly women and children) to find any shelter? And 
how can they live through the winter in the woods — ^no shelter 
or subsistence, in the midst of strangers who know them not, and 
without the power to assist them much if they were willing to do 
so." 

" This (they say) is but a feeble picture of the consequences 
of this measure. You know the woe, the horrors and the suffer- 
ing cannot be described by words; imagination can only con- 
ceive it, and we ask you to take these things into consideration." 
* * * 

To this pathetic appeal Sherman coolly replied on the next day, 
his letter commencing as follows : 

" I have your letter of the 11th, in the nature of a petition to 

revoke my orders removing all the inhabitants from Atlanta. I 

have read it carefully, and give full credit to your statements of 

the distress that will be occasioned, and yet I shall not revoke my 

5 



82 Official Reports of the 

orders, because they were not designated to meet the humanities 
of the case, but to prepare for the future struggles in which millions 
of good people outside of Atlanta have a deep interest," &c. * * * 

After he had started on his " march to the sea " he gives an 
account of how the foraging details were made and carried out 
each day, and concludes by saying : 

" Although this foraging was attended with great danger and 
hard work, there seemed to be a charm about it that attracted the 
soldiers, and it was a privilege to be detailed on such a party." 

" Lastly, they returned mounted on all sorts of beasts, which 
were at once taken from them and appropriated to the general use, 
but the next day they would start out again on foot, only to repeat 
the experience of the day before. No douM (he says) many acts of 
pillage, rohhery and violence ivere committed hy these parties of 
foragers, usually called ' huminers/ for I have since heard of jewelry 
taJcen from women and the plunder of articles that never reached 
the commissary," &c. * * * 

(See 2 Mem., page 182.) 

He not only does not say that he tried to prevent his army from 
committing these outrages, but says, on page 255, in referring to his 
march through South Carolina : 

" I would not restrain the army, lest its vigor and energy should 
be impaired." 

He tells on page 185 how, when he reached General Howell 
Cobb's plantation, he " sent word back to General Davis to explain 
whose plantation it was, and instructed him to spare nothing.'^ 

To show what a heartless wretch he was, he tells on page 194 
about one of his officers having been wounded by the explosion of 
a torpedo that had been hidden in the line of march, and on which 
this officer had stepped. He says : 

"I immediately ordered a lot of rebel prisoners to he brought 
from the provost guard, armed with picJcs and spades, and made 
them march in close order along the road, so as to explode their 
own torpedoes, or to discover and dig them up. They begged hard 
but I reiterated the order, and could hardly help laughing at their 
stepping so gingerly along the road where it was supposed sunlcen 
torpedoes might explode at each step." 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 83 

It may be fairly inferred, from General Sherman's middle name 
(Tecumseh), that some of his ancestors were Indians. But 
whether this be true or not, no one can read this statement of his 
Mdthout being convinced that he was a savage. But he was not only 
a confessed savage, as we have seen, but a confessed vandal as well. 
He says, on page 256, in telling of a night he spent in one of the 
splendid old houses of South Carolina, where, he says, "the pro- 
prietors formerly had dispensed a hospitality that distinguished the 
old regime of that proud State:" " I slept (he says) on the floor 
of the house, but the night was so bitter cold, that I got up by the 
fire several times, and when it turned low I reUndled it with an 
old mantel cloch and the lorecl- of a bedstead which stood in the 
corner of the room — the only act of vandalism that I recall done 
by myself personally during the war." Since the admissions of a 
criminal are always taken as conclusive proof of his crime, we 
now Jcnow from his own lips that General Sherman was a vandal. 

But we also find, on page 287, that he confessed having told a 
falsehood about General Hampton, so that we cannot credit his 
statement that the foregoing was his only act of vandalism. In- 
deed, we think we have most satisfactory evidence to the contrary. 
(It will be noted, however, that Sherman makes a distinction 
between his personal acts of vandalism and those he committed 
through others.) A part of this evidence is to be found in the 
following letter from a lieutenant, Thomas J. Myers, published in 
Vol. 12, Southern Historical Society Papers, page 113, with the 
following head note : 

" The following letter was found in the streets of Columbia 
after the army of General Sherman had left. The original is still 
preserved, and can be shown and substantiated, if anybody desires. 
We are indebted to a distinguished lady of this city for a copy, sent 
with a request for publication. We can add nothing in the way of 
comment on such a document. It speaks for itself." 

The letter, which is a republication from the Alderson West Vir- 
ginia Statesman, of October 29, 1883, is as follows : 



84 Official Reports of the 

Camp neae Camden, S. C, February 26, 1865. 
My Dear Wife : 

" I have no time for particulars. We have had a glorious time 
in this State. Unrestricted license to hum and plunder was the 
order of the day. The chivalry have been stripped of most of their 
valuables. Gold watches, silver pitchers, cups, spoons, forks, &c., 
&c., are as common in camp as blackberries. The terms of plunder 
are as follows : The valuables procured are estimated by companies. 
Each company is required to exhibit the result of its operations at 
any given place. One-fifth and first choice falls to the commander- 
in-chief and staff, one-fifth to corps commander and staff, one-fifth 
to field officers, two-fifths to the company. Officers are not allowed 
to join in these expeditions, unless disguised as privates. One of 
our corps commanders borrowed a rough suit of clothes from one 
of my men, and was successful in his place. He got a large quantity 
of silver (among other things an old milk pitcher), and a very fine 
gold watch from a Mr. DeSaussure, of this place (Columbia). 
DeSaussure is one of the F. F. V.'s of South Carolina, and was 
made to fork out liberally. Officers over the rank of captain are 
not made to put their plunder in the estimate for general distribu- 
tion. This is very unfair, and for that reason, in order to protect 
themselves, the subordinate officers and privates keep everything 
back that they can carry about their persons, such as rings, earrings, 
breastpins, &c., &c., of which, if I live to get home, I have a quart. 
I am not joking. I have at least a quart of jewelry for you and 
all the girls, and some No. 1 diamond pins and rings among them. 
General Sherman has gold and silver enought to start a hanTc. His 
share in gold watches and chains alone at Columbia was two hun- 
dred and seventy-five. 

" But I said I could not go into particulars. All the general 
officers, and many besides, have valuables of every description, 
down to ladies' pocket handerchiefs. I have my share of them, 
too. 

We took gold and silver enough from the d — d rebels to have 
redeemed their infernal currency twice over. * * * j wish 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 



85 



all the jewelry this army has could be carried to the Old Bay 
State. It would deck her out in glorious style ; but, alas ! it will 
be scattered all over the North and Middle States. 

" The damned niggers, as a general thing, preferred to stay at 
home, particularly after they found out that we wanted only the 
able-bodied men, and to tell the truth, the youngest and best looking 
women. Sometimes we took them off by way of repaying influential 
secessionists. But a part of these we soon managed to lose, some- 
times in crossing rivers, sometimes in other ways. I shall write you 
again from "Wilmington, Goldsboro, or some other place in North 
Carolina. The order to march has arrived, and I must close hur- 
rierlly. 

" Love to grandmother and Aunt Charlotte. Take care of your- 
self and the children. Don't show this letter out of the family. 
" Yoiir affectionate husband, 

" Thomas J. Myers, 
" Lieutenant, &c." 

" P. S. — I will send this by the first flag of truce, to be mailed, 
unless I have an opportunity of sending it to Hilton Head. Tell 
liOttie I am saving a pearl bracelet and earrings for her. But Lam- 
bert got the necklace and breast-pin of the same set. I am trying 
to trade him out of them. These were taken from the Misses 
Jamison, daughters of the President of the South Carolina Seces- 
sion Convention. We found these on our trip through Georgia. 

"T. J. M." 

" This letter is addressed to Mrs. Thomas J. Myers, Boston, 
Mass." 

It was published in the Southern Historical Society Papers, 
in March, 1884. About a year thereafter one Colonel Henry 
Stone, styling himself "^ Late Brevet Colonel IT. S. Volunteers, 
A. A. G. Army of the Cumberland," realizing the gravity of 
the statements contained in this letter, and the disgrace these, if 
uncontradicted, would bring on General Sherman and his army, 



86 "• Official Reports of the 

and especially on the staff, of which he (Colonel Stone) was a mem- 
ber, wrote a letter to the Rev. J. William Jones, D. D., the then 
editor of the Historical Society Papers, in which he undertook to 
show that the Myers letter was not written by any officer in General 
Sherman's army, (This letter can be found in Vol. 13, S. H. S. 
Papers, page 439.) The reasons assigned by Colonel Stone were 
plausibly set forth, and Dr. Jones, in his anxiety to do justice even 
to Sherman's "bummers," after publishing Colonel Stone's letter, 
said editorially, he was " frank to admit that Colonel Stone seems 
to have made out his case against the authenticity of this letter." 
If the matter had rested here, we would not have thought of using 
this letter in our report, notwithstanding the fact ( 1 ) that we think 
the letter bears the impress of genuineness on its face; (2) it is 
vouched for by what Dr. Jones termed a " responsible source," and 
what the first paper publishing it cited as a " distinguished lady," 
who, it also stated, said that the original was " still preserved and 
could be shown and substantiated;" (3) the statements contained in 
Colonel Stone's letter are only his statements, uncorroborated and 
not vouched for by any one, or by any documentary evidence of any 
kind, and being those of an alleged accomplice, are not entitled to 
any weight in a court of justice; (4) we think the reasons assigned 
by Colonel Stone for the non-genuineness of this letter are for 
the most part not inconsistent with its genuineness; and (5) 
some of his statements are, apparently, inconsistent with some of 
the facts as they appear in the records we have examined, e. g. He 
says " that of the ninety regiments of Sherman's army, which might 
have passed on the march near Camden, S. C, but a single one — a 
New Jersey regiment — was from the Middle States. All the rest 
were from the West. A letter (he says) from the only Thomas J. 
Myers ever in the army would never contain such a phrase," refer- 
ring to the fact that Myers had said this stolen jewelry, &c., would 
be scattered " all over the North and Middle States." Sherman's 
statement of the organization of his army on this march shows 
there were several regiments in it from New York and Penn- 
sylvania, besides one from Maryland and one from New Jersey (all 
four middle States). But we think this, like other reasons assigned 
by Colonel Stone, are without merit. 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 87 

But, as we have said, notwitlistanding all these things which 
seemingly discredit the reasons assigned by Colonel Stone for the 
non-genuineness of this letter, we should not have used the latter 
in this report, had not the substantial statements in it been con- 
firmed, as we shall now see. The Myers' letter was first published 
on October 29, 1883. On the 31st of July, 1865, Captain E. J. 
Hale, Jr., of Fayetteville, N'. C, who had been on General James 
H. Lane's stafl?, and who is vouched for by General Lane as " an 
elegant educated gentleman," wrote to General Lane, telling him of 
the destruction and devastation at his home, and in that letter he 
makes this statement: 

"You have doubtless heard of Sherman's 'bummers.' The 
Yankees would have you believe that they were only the straggling 
pillagers usually found in all armies. Several letters written hy 
officers of Sherman s army, intercepted near this toivti, give this the 
lie. 

" In some of these letters were descriptions of the whole bum- 
ming process, and from them it appears that it was a regularly 
organized system, under the authority of General Sherman himself ; 
that one-fifth of the proceeds fell to General Sherman, another 
fifth to the other general officers, another fifth to the line officers, 
and the remaining two-fifths to the enlisted men." 

Now, compare this division of the spoils with that set forth in 
the Myers' letter, published, as we have said, eighteen years later, 
and it will be seen that they are almost identical, and this state- 
ment was taken, as Captain Hale states, from "several letters 
written by officers of Sherman's army," intercepted near Fayette- 
ville, N. C, and as we have said, they confirm the statements of the 
Myers' letter, and its consequent genuineness, to a remarkable de- 
gree. It is proper, also, to state, that we have recently received 
a letter from Dr. Jones, in which he states that after carefully con- 
sidering this whole matter again, he is now satisfied that he was 
mistaken in his editorial comments on Colonel Stone's letter, that 
he is now satisfied of the genuineness of the Myers' letter, and that 



88 Official Reports of the 

in his opinion we could use it in this report " with perfect pro- 
priety and safety."* 

We have discussed this letter thus fully because we feel satisfied 
that the annals of warfare disclose nothing so venal and depraved. 
Imagine, if it is possible to do so, Eobert E. Lee and Stonewall 
Jackson commanding an army licensed by them to plunder the 
defenceless, and then sharing in the fruits of this plundering ! 

We can barely allude to Sherman's burning of Columbia, the 
proof of which is too conclusive to admit of controversy. On 
the 18th December, 1864, Genera H. W. Halleck, major-general, 
and cliief of staff of the armies of the United States, wrote Sherman 
as follows :***** 

,»" Should you capture Charleston, I hope that by some accident 
the place may be destroyed, and if a little salt should be thrown 
upon its site, it may prevent the future growth of nullification and 
secession." 

To this suggestion from this high ( ?) source to commit murder, 
arson and robbery, and pretend it tvas hy accident, Sherman replied 
on December 24, 1864, as follows : 

" I will bear in mind your hint as to Charleston, and do not think 
that ' salt ' will be necessary. When I move the Fifteenth Corps 
will be on the right of the right wing, and their position will 
naturally bring them into Charleston first, and if you have watched 
the history of that corps, you will have remarked that they generally 
do their work pretty well ; the truth is the whole army is burning 
with an insatiable desire to wreak vengeance upon South Carolina. 
I almost tremble for her fate, hut feel that she deserves all that 
seems in store for her. I looJc upon Columbia as quite as had as 
Charleston, and I doubt if we shall spare the public buildings there, 
as we did at Milledgeville." 

2 Sherman's Men., pages 223, 227-8. 



*Since this report was submitted, we have received a letter from 
the husband of the lady who had the original of this Myers' letter, 
setting forth the time, place and all the circumstances under which it 
was fovmd the day after Sherman's army left Camden. (It was found 
near Camden, and not on the streets of Columbia,) and these state- 
ments, together with others contained in this letter and in the Myers' 
letter, too, established the genuineness of the Myers' letter, in our 
opinion, beyond any and all reasonable doubt. 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 89 

We say proof of his ordering (or permitting, which is just as 
bad) the destruction of Columbia is overwhehning. (See report 
of Chancellor Carroll, Chairman of a committee appointed to 
investigate the facts about this in General Bradley T. Johnson's 
Life of Johnston, from which several of these extracts are taken.) 
Our people owe General Johnson a debt of gratitude for this and his 
other contributions to Confederate history. And Sherman had the 
effrontery to write in his Memoirs, that in his official report of this 
conflagration, he " distinctly charged it to General Wade Hampton, 
and (says) I confess I did so pointedly ta slialce the faith of his peo- 
ple in him." (See 2 Sherman's Memoirs, page 287.) 

The man who confessed to the world that he made this false 
charge with such a motive needs no characterization at the hands 
of this Committee. 

General Sherman set out to " make Georgia hovv- 1," and proposed, 
as he said, to "march through that State smashing things to the 
sea." He wrote to Grant after his march through South Carolina, 
saying : 

" The people of South Carolina, instead of feeding Lee's army, 
will now call on Lee to feed them." 

(2 Memoirs, page 298.) 

So complete had been his destruction in that State, he also 
says: 

"Having utterly ruined Columbia, the right wing began its 
march northward," &c. 

2 Memoirs, page 288. 

On the 21st of February, 1865, only a few days after the burning 
of Columbia, General Hampton wrote to General Sherman, charging 
him with being responsible for its destruction, and other outrages, 
in which he said, among other things : 

" You permitted, if you have not ordered, the commission of 
these offences against humanity and the rules of war. You fired 
into the city of Columbia without a word of warning. After its 
surrender by the Mayor, who demanded protection to private 
property, you laid the whole city in ashes, leaving amid its ruins 
thousands of old men and helpless women and children, who are 



90 Official Reports of the 

likely to perish of starvation and exposure. Your line of march 
can be traced by the lurid light of burning houses, and in more 
than one household there is an agony far more bitter than death. 

" The Indian scalped his victim, regardless of age or sex, but 
with all his barbarity, he always respected the person of his female 
captives. Your soldiers, more savage than the Indian, insult those 
whose natural protectors are absent." 

3 Great Civil War, 601. 

SHERIDAN^S ORDERS AND CONDUCT. 

But whilst no one will dispute the fact that Sherman has a 
clear title to the distinction we have accorded him in this report, 
yet, unfortunately for the people of the South, he had other willing 
and efficient aids in his work of devastation, destruction and van- 
dalism ; and we must now take up, for a time, the work of his " close 
second," General Philip H. Sheridan. This officer is reputed to 
have said that the true principles for conducting war are — 

" First. Deal as hard blows to the enemy's soldiers as possible, 
and then cause so much suffering to the inhabitants of the country 
that they will long for peace and press their government to make 
it." "Nothing" (he says) "should he left to the people hut eyes 
to lament the war." 

He certainly acted on the last of these principles in his dealings 
with the people of the beautiful Valley of Virginia, which by his 
vandalism was converted from one of the most fertile and beautiful 
portions of our land, into a veritable " valley of the shadow of 
death." He actually boasted that he had so desolated it, that " a 
crow flying over would have to carry his own rations." 

In Sheridan's letter to Grant, dated Woodstock, October 7, 1864, 
he says of his work : 

" In moving back to this point the whole country, from the Blue 
Ridge to the North Mountain, has been made untenable for the 
rebel army. 

" I have destroyed over 3,000 barns filled with wheat and hay and 
farming implements; over 70 mills filled with flour and wheat; 
have driven in front of the army over 4,000 head of stock, and have 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 91 

killed and issued to the troops not less than 3,000 sheep. This 
destruction embraces the Luray Valley and Little Fort Valley, as 
well as the main valley. 

" A large number of horses have been obtained, a proper estimate 
of which I cannot now make. 

" Lieutenant John E. Meigs, my engineer officer, was murdered 
beyond Harrisonburg, near Dayton. For this atrocious act all the 
houses within an area of five miles were 'burned." 

It is not generally known, we believe, that this policy of de- 
vastation on the part of Sheridan was directly inspired and ordered 
by General Grant, who, in his Memoirs, writes with great satisfac- 
tion and levity of the outrages committed by Sherman, before 
referred to, and which he, of course, understood would be com- 
mitted, from the terms of Sherman's telegram to him, and which he, 
at the least, asquiesced in. 

On the 5th of August, 1864, he (Grant) wrote to General David 
Hunter, who preceded Sheridan in command of the Valley, as 
follows, viz. : 

" In pushing up the Shenandoah Valley, where it is expected you 
will have to go first or last, it is desirable that nothing should he 
left to invite the enemy to return. Take all provisions, forage and 
sioch ivanted for the use of your command; such as cannot he con- 
sumed destroy." * * 

And says Mr. Horace Greely: 

" This order, Sheridan, in returning down the Valley, executed 
to the letter. Whatever of grain and forage had escaped appro- 
priation by one or another of the armies which had so frequently 
chased each other up and down this narrow but fertile and pro- 
ductive vale, was now given to the torch." 

2 Am_. Conflict, 610-11. 2 Grant's Memoirs, 581, 364-5. 

The facts about the alleged murder of Lieutenant Meigs, for 
which Sheridan says he burned all the houses in an area of five 
miles, are these: Three of our cavalry scouts, in uniform, and 
with their arms, got within Sheridan's lines, and encountered Lieu- 
tenant Meigs, with two Federal soldiers. These parties came on 
each other suddenly. Meigs was ordered to surrender by one of 



22 Official Reports of the 

our men, and he replied by shooting and wounding this man, who, 
in turn, fired and killed Meigs. One of the men with Meigs was 
captured and the other escaped. It was for this perfectly justi- 
fiable conduct in war that Sheridan says he ordered all the houses 
of private citizens within an area of five miles to be burned. 

(See proof of facts of this occurrence, to the satisfaction of 
Lieutenant Meigs' father, 9th South. His. Society Papers, page 
77.) 

butler's order. 

Butler's infamous order No. 28, directing that any lady of New 
Orleans who should " by word, gesture or movement insult or show 
contempt for any officer or soldier of the United States, she shall 
be regarded and treated as a woman of the town, plying her avoca- 
tion," not only infuriated the people of the South and caused the 
author to be " outlawed " by our government, and denominated the 
" beast," but Lord Palmerson, in the British House of Commons,- 
" took occasion to be astonished to blush and to proclaim his deepest 
indignation at the tenor of that order." (3 Greely, p. 100.) 

But we are sick of these recitals, and must conclude our report, 
already longer than we intended it should be. We therefore only 
allude to the orders found on the person of Dahlgren, to burn, sack 
and destroy the city of Eichmond, to " kill Jeff. Davis and his 
Cabinet on the spot," &c. 

The infamous deeds of General Edward A. Wild, both in Vir- 
ginia and Georgia, and that of Colonel John McNiel in Missouri, 
some of which can be found set forth in the first volume of the 
Southern Historical Papers, at pages 326 and 232, are shocking 
and disgraceful beyond description. 

Now contrast with all these orders and all this conduct on the 
part of the Federal officers and soldiers, the address of General 
Early to the people of York, Pa., when our army invaded that State 
in the Gettysburg campaign; or, better still, the order of General 
Eobert E. Lee to his army on that march. We will let that order 
speak for itself. Here it is : 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 93 

" Headquarters A. N. V., 
" Chambersburg, Pa., June 27, 1863. 
" General Orders No. 73. 

"The commanding general has marked with satisfaction the 
conduct of the troops on the march and confidently anticipates 
results commensurate with the high spirit they have manifested. 
No troops could have displayed greater fortitude or better per- 
formed the arduous marches of the first ten days. Their conduct 
in other respects has, with few exceptions, been in keeping with 
their character as soldiers, and entitles them to approbation and 
praise. 

" There have, however, been instances of forgetfulness on the 
part of some, that they have in keeping the yet unsullied reputa- 
tion of the army, and the duties exacted of us by civilization and 
Christianity are not less obligatory in the country of the enemy 
than in our own. The commanding general considers that no 
greater disgrace could befall the army, and through it to our 
whole people, than the perpetration of the barbarous outrages 
upon the innocent and defenceless and the wanton destruction of 
private property, that have marked the course of the enemy in our 
own country. Such proceedings not only disgrace the perpetrators 
and all connected with them, but are subversive of the discipline 
and efficiency of the army and destructive of the ends of our 
present movements. It must be remembered that we make war 
only on armed men, and that we cannot take vengeance for the 
wrongs our people have suffered without lowering ourselves in the 
eyes of all whose abhorrence has been excited by the atrocities of 
our enemy, and offending against Him to whom vengeance belong- 
eth, without whose favor and support our efforts must all prove in 
vain. The commanding general therefore earnestly exhorts the 
troops to abstain, with most scrupulous care, from unnecessary or 
wanton injury to private property; and to enjoin upon all officers 
to arrest and bring to summary punishment all who shall in any 
way offend against the orders on this subject. 

" R. E. Lee, General" 



94 Official Reports of the 

The London Times commented most favorably on this order, and 
its American correspondent said of it and of the conduct of our 
troops : 

" The greatest surprise has been expressed to me by oflBcers from 
the Austrian, Prussian and English armies, each of which have 
representatives here, that volunteer troops, provoked by nearly 
twenty-seven m.onths of unparalleled ruthlessness and wantonness, 
of which their country has been the scene, should be under such 
control, and should be willing to act in harmony with the long 
suffering and forbearance of President Davis and General Lee." 

To show how faithfully that order was carried out, the same 
writer tells how he saw, with his own eyes, General Lee and a 
surgeon of his command repairing a farmer's fence that had been 
damaged by the army. Indeed, we might rest our whole case on 
the impartial judgment of a distinguished foreigner, who, writing 
in 1864, drew this vivid picture and striking contrast between the 
way the war was conducted on our part and on that of the Federals. 
He says : 

" This contest has been signalized by the exhibition of some of 
the best and some of the worst qualities that war has ever brought 
out. It has produced a recklessness of human life, a contempt 
of principles, a disregard of engagements, * * the headlong 
adoption of the most lawless measures, the public faith scandalously 
violated, both towards friends and enemies; the liberty of the 
citizen at the hands of arbitrary power; the liberty of the press 
abolished ; the suspension df the habeas corpus act; illegal imprison- 
ments; midnight arrests; punishments inflicted without trial; the 
courts of law controlled by satellites of government; elections car- 
ried on under military supervision; a ruffianism, both of word and 
action, eating deep into the country* * * ; the must brutal 
inhumanity in the conduct of the war itself; outrages upon the 
defenceless, upon women, children and prisoners; plunder, rapine, 
devastation, murder — all the old horrors of barbarous warfare which 
Europe is beginning to be ashamed of, and new refinements of 
cruelty thereto added, by way of illustrating the advance of knowl- 
edge." 

He further says : 



History Committee, Grand Gamp, G. V. 95 

" It has also produced qr.alities and phenomena the opposite of 
these. Ardour and devotedness of patriotism, which might alone 
make us proud of the century to which we belong; a unanimity 
such as was probably never witnessed before; a wisdom in legis- 
lation, a stainless good faith under extremely difficult circumstances, 
a clear apprehension of danger, coupled with a determination to 
face it to the uttermost; a resolute abnegation of power in favor 
of leaders in whom those who selected them could trust; with an 
equally resolute determination to reserve the liberty of criticism, 
and not to allow those trusted leaders to go one inch beyond their 
legal powers; a heroism in the field and behind the defences of 
besieged cities, which can match anything that history has to show ; 
a wonderful helpfulness in supplying needs and creating fresh re- 
sources ; a chivalrous and romantic daring, which recalls the middle 
ages ; a most scrupulous regard for the rights of hostile property ; 
a tender consideration for the vanquished and the weak. * * * 
And the remarkable circumstance is, that all the good qualities have 
been on the one side and all the bad ones on the other." 

In other words, he says that all the good qualities have been 
on the side of the South, and all the bad ones on the side of the 
North. (See Confederate Secession, by the Marquis of Lothian, 
p. 183.) 

And all this was written prior to the conduct of the armies under 
Sherman and Sheridan, some of which we have herein set forth. 
How could the learned Marquis find words to portray those things ? 

We could cite other authorities to, substantially, the same effect; 
but surely this arraignment from this high source ought to be 
sufficient. If any one thinks this distinguished writer has over- 
drawn the picture, especially in regard to illegal arrests and im- 
prisonments and brutal conduct towards women and children, and 
the defenceless generally, let them read a little book entitled, " The 
Old Capital and its Inmates," which has inscribed on its cover what 
Mr. Seward boastingly said to Lord Lyons, the British Minister 
at Washington, on September 14, 1861, viz. : 

" My Lord " (he says), " I can touch a bell on my right hand and 
order the arrest of a citizen of Ohio. I can touch a bell again 



96 Official Reports of the 

and order the arrest of a citizen of New York. Can the Queen 
of England in her dominions do as much?" 

The late Judge Jeremiah S. Black, of Pennsylvania, at one 
time President of the Supreme Court of that State, and after- 
wards Attorney-General of the United States under Mr. Buchanan, 
one of the most distinguished lawyers and writers of his day, thus 
writes of Mr. Seward and his little bell : 

" Now as to the little bell. The same Higher Law which gave 
the Federal Government power to legislate against the States, in 
defiance of the Constitution, would logically justify any executive 
outrage that might be desired for party purposes, on the life, 
liberty and property of individuals. Such was Mr. Seward's theory, 
and such was the practice of himself and his subordinates, and 
some of his colleagues." 

He says further to Mr. Charles Frances Adams (to whom he 
was writing) : 

" I will not pain you by a recital of the wanton cruelties they 
inflicted upon unoffending citizens. I have neither space nor skill 
nor time to paint them. A life-size picture of them would cover 
more canvas than there is on the earth." * * * " Since the 
fall of Eobespierre " (he says) " nothing has occurred to cast so 
much disrepute on republican institutions. Wlien Mr. Seward went 
into the State Department he took a little bell to his office, in 
place of the statute book, and this piece of sounding brass came to 
be a symbol of the Higher Law. When he desired to kidnap a 
free citizen, to banish him, to despoil him of his property, or to 
kill him after the mockery of a military trial, he rang his little 
bell, and the deed was done." 

(See Black's Essays, page 153.) 

In speaking of the murder of Mrs. Surratt, he says : 

" In 1865, months after the peace, at the political capital of 
the nation, in full sight of the Executive mansion, the Capitol and 
the City Hall, where the courts were in session, a perfectly innocent 
and most respectable woman was lawlessly dragged from her family 
and brutally put to death, without judge or jury, upon the mere 
order of certain military officers convoked for that purpose. It was. 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 97 

take it all in all, as foul a murder as ever blackened the face of 
God's sky. But it was done in strict accordance with Higher Law, 
and the Law Department of the United States approved it." 

Now this is what a Northern man, living in Washington at the 
time, a profound lawyer and statesman, has to say of these things. 

As a matter of course, the North will attempt to reply (about 
the only reply they can offer with any apparent justification) : 
Well, they will ask, was not Ghamhersljurg burnt by General Early's 
order? Yes, it was; but under circumstances which show that 
that act was no justification whatever for the outrages we have set 
forth in this paper, and was only resorted to by General Early by 
way of retaliation, and to try, if possible, to stop the outrages then 
being committed. It was only resorted to, too, after full warning 
and an offer to the municipal authorities of Chambersburg to pre- 
vent the conflagration by paying for certain private property just 
previously destroyed by General Hunter. But this offer these 
authorities refused to accede to, saying " they were not afraid of 
having their town burned, and that a Federal force was approach- 
ing." General Early says in his report : 

" I desired to give the people of Chambersburg an opportunity 
of saving their town by making compensation for part of the injury 
done, and hoped that the payment of such a sum (one hundred 
thousand dollars in gold, or five hundred thousand in greenbacks) 
would have the desired effect, and open the eyes of the people of 
other towns at the North to the necessity of urging upon their 
government the adoption of a different policy." 

(See Early's Memoirs, where the full report of this occurrence 
is given.) 

Among the private property destroyed by Hunter, for which 
this sum was demanded by General Early, were the private resi- 
dences of Andrew Hunter, Esq. (then a member of the Senate 
of Virginia, who had prosecuted John Brown as Commonwealth's 
Attorney of Jefferson county, Va.) ; of Alexander E. Boteler, Esq. 
(an ex-member of the Confederate and United States Congresses), 
and of Edmund J. Lee, Esq. (a relative of General Lee), with their 



98 Official Reports of the 

contents^ only time enough having been given the ladies to get out 
of these houses. 

General Hunter had also just caused the Virginia Military 
Institute, the house of Governor Letcher, and numerous other 
houses in the Valley, to be burned. Even General Halleck, writing 
to General Sherman on September 28, 1864, refers thus to this 
conduct of Hunter. He says : 

" I do not approve of General Hunter's course in burning private 
houses or uselessly destroying private property. That is barbar- 
ous." * * 

See 2 Sherman's Mem., page 129. 

No soldier in the Confederate army understood better than 
General Early the rules of civilized warfare, or was more opposed 
to vandalism in every form. His conduct at York, Pa., before 
referred to, and his address to the people of that tovoi, show this 
in the most satisfactory manner. He says : 

" I have abstained from burning the railroad buildings and car 
shops in your town because, after examination, I am satisfied that 
the safety of the town would be endangered. Acting in the spirit 
of humanity, which has ever characterized my government and its 
military authorities, I do not desire to involve the innocent in the 
same punishment with the guilty. Had I applied the torch with- 
out regard to consequences, I would have pursued a course which 
would have been fully vindicated as an act of Just retaliation for the 
unparalleled acts of brutality on our soil. But we do not war upon 
women and children." 

General E. H. Anderson, in his report of the Gettysburg cam- 
paign, says : 

" The conduct of my troops was in the highest degree praise- 
worthy. Obedient to the order of the commanding general, they 
refrained from retaliating upon the enemy for outrages inflicted 
upon their homes. Peaceable inhabitants suffered no molestation. 
In a land of plenty, they often suffered hunger and want. One- 
fourth their number marched ragged and bare-footed through towns 
in which merchants were known to have concealed ample supplies 
of clothins: and shoes." 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 99 

On the 2nd of July, 1863, when the battle of Gettysburg was 
being fought, and when President Davis had every reason to believe 
we would be victorious, he wrote : 

" My whole purpose is, in one word, to place this war on the 
footing of such as are waged by civilized people in modern times, 
and to divest it of the savage character which has been impressed 
on it by our enemies, in spite of all our efforts and protests." 
Hoke's Great Invasion, p. 52. 

Of course, we do not pretend to say that there were not indi- 
vidual cases of depredation committed, and even on our own 
people, by some of our soldiers. Indeed, it was often necessary 
for our army to subsist on the country through which it marched, 
which was perfectly legitimate. And when we remember the suf- 
ferings and privations to which our armies had to be subjected by 
reason of our lack of necessary supplies of almost all kinds, it is 
amazing that so little " foraging " was done by our men. But 
what we do contend for and state, without the least fear of contra- 
diction, is that the conflict was conducted throughout on the part 
of the South — by the Government at home and the officers in the 
field' — upon the highest principles of civilized warfare; that if 
these were ever departed from, it was done without the sanction 
and against the orders of the Confederate authorities. And that 
exactly the reverse of this is true as to the Federal authorities, we 
have established by the most overwhelming mass of testimony, fur- 
nished almost entirely from ISTorthern sources. 

But we cannot protract this paper; it is already much longer 
than we intended or desired it should be. We would like to have 
embraced in it a full discussion of the treatment of prisoners on 
both sides; but we must leave this, and the treatment of Mr. 
Davis whilst a prisoner, for some future report. If any one de- 
sires, in advance of that, to see a full discussion of these subjects, 
we refer, as to the former, to the very able articles by Eev. J. 
William Jones, D. D., in Vol. I., Southern Historical Society Pa- 
pers, beginning with page 113, and running through several num- 
bers of that volume, in which he adduces a mass of testimony, and 
completely vindicates the South. He shows — 

tOfC. 



100 Official Reports of the 

(1) (As Mr. Davis states it) "From the reports of the United 
States War Department, that though we had sixty thousand more 
Federal prisoners than they had of Confederates, six thousand 
more Confederates died in ISTorthern prisons than died of Federals 
in Southern prisons." 

(2) That the laws of the Confederate Congress, the regulations 
of our Surgeon-General, the orders of our generals in the field, 
and those who had the immediate charge of prisoners, all provided 
that they should be kindly treated, supplied with the same rations 
that our soldiers had, and cared for when sick in hospitals and 
placed on precisely the same footing as Confederate soldiers. 

(3) If these regulations were violated by subordinates in individ- 
ual instances, it was done without the knowledge or consent of the 
Confederate authorities, which promptly rebuked and punished any 
case reported. 

(4) If any prisoners failed to get full rations, or had those of 
inferior quality, the Confederate soldiers suffered the same priva- 
tions, and these were the necessary consequences of the mode of 
carrying on the war on the part of the North, which brought deso- 
lation and ruin on the South, and these conditions were necessarily 
reflected on their prisoners in our hands. 

(5) That the mortality in Southern prisons resulted from 
causes beyond our control, but these could have been greatly alle- 
viated had not medicines been declared by the Federal Government 
as " contraband of war," and had not the Federal authorities re- 
fused the offer of our Agent of Exchange, the late Judge Ould, 
that each Government should send its own surgeons and medicines 
to relieve the sufferings of their respective soldiers in prisons — re- 
fused to accept our offer to let them send medicines, &c., to relieve 
their own prisoners, without any such privilege being accorded by 
them to us — ^refused to allow the Confederate Government to buy 
medicines for gold, tobacco, or cotton, &c., which it offered to 
pledge its honor should only be used for their prisoners in our 
hands — ^refused to exchange sick and wounded, and neglected from 
August to December, 1864, to accede to our Agent's proposition 
to send transportation to Savannah and receive without any equiv- 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 101 

alent from ten to fifteen thousand Federal prisoners, although, the 
offer was accompanied with the statement of our Agent of Ex- 
change (Judge Ould), showing the monthly mortality at Ander- 
sonville, and that we were utterly unable to care for these pris- 
oners as they should be cared for, and that Judge Ould again and 
again urged compliance with this humane proposal on our part. 
(6) That the sufferings of Confederates in Northern prisons 
were terrible, almost beyond description; that they were starved 
in a land of plenty; that they were allowed to freeze where cloth- 
ing and fuel were plentiful; that they suffered for hospital stores, 
medicines and proper attention when sick; that they were shot 
by sentinels, beaten by officers, and subjected to the most cruel 
punishments upon the slightest pretexts ; that friends at the North 
were, in many instances, refused the privilege of clothing their 
nakedness or feeding them when they were starving ; and that these 
outrages were often perpetrated not only with the knowledge, but 
by the orders of E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War of the United 
States. 

And (7) That the sufferings of prisoners on both sides were 
caused by the failure to carry out the terms of the Cartel for ex- 
change, and for this failure the Federal authorities were alone re- 
sponsible. 

These propositions are stated substantially in the language em- 
ployed by Dr. Jones, and although twenty-five years have since 
elapsed, they have never been controverted in any essential par- 
ticular, as far as we have heard or known. Our people owe Dr. 
Jones a debt of gratitude for this able and effective vindication of 
their course in this important matter, which they can never repay. 
As to the treatment of Mr. Davis whilst a prisoner: 
Captain Charles M. Blackford, of Lynchburg, Va., in an article 
read before the Virginia Bar Association at its meeting at Old 
Point, in 1900 (the facts of which article were taken entirely 
from the official records of the Federal Government), showed in 
a masterly manner that this treatment was the refinement of 
cruelty and cowardice on the part of the Federal authorities, and 
such as should bring the blush of shame to the cheek of every 



103 Official Reports of the 

American citizen who was in sympathy with, or a participant in, 
those acts. Our people owe Captain Blackford a debt of gratitude 
also for this article. It can be found in the printed reports of 
the Virginia Bar Association for 1900. Ten thousand copies of 
it were ordered by the Association to be printed for distribution. 
As we said in our last report, it will doubtless be asked by 
some, who have no just conception of the motives which actuate 
us in making these reports. Why we gather up and exhibit to 
the world these records of a bitter strife now ended more than a 
third of a century? Does it not, they ask, only do harm by keep- 
ing alive the smouldering embers of that conflict? We reply 
to all these enquiries, that such is not our intention or desire. 
But the four years of that war made a history of the people of 
the ISTorth and of the people of the South, much of which has 
been written only by historians of the North. In this history, 
all the blame concerning the war has been laid on the people of 
the South, and the attempt made to " consign them to infamy.^' 
There were two sides to the issues involved in that war, and the 
historians of the North, with the superior means at their com- 
mand, have used, and are still using, these means to convince 
the world that they were right and that we were wrong. They 
are striving, too, to teach our children that this was the case, and 
for thirty years their histories were taught in our schools, un- 
challenged, and in that way the minds of our children were pre- 
judiced and poisoned against the acts and conduct of their parents 
in regard to that conflict. We therefore feel that we owe it to 
ourselves and to the memories of those who suffered and died for 
the cause we fought so hard to maintain, to let our children and 
the world know the truth as to the causes of that conflict, and how 
it was conducted. This Camp has, as we have said, done much 
in that direction; it can do much more; and, in our opinion, no 
higher or more sacred duty coidd he imposed on or undertaken hy 
men. 

There were during the war, and there are now, many brave 
and true men at the North. There were many such in the Feder- 
al armies, and there were many of these who, whilst taking sides 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 103 

with the North on the question of maintaining the Union, were 
shocked and disgusted at the methods pursued by it to accom- 
plish that result. These have written and spoken about these 
methods, both of what they thought and of what they knew, 
and we have only gathered up some of this testimony in support 
of the justice of our cause, and of the course pursued by us to 
maintain it. Surely, the North cannot complain if we rest our 
case upon their testimony. We have done this almost exclusively, 
both in this and in former reports. The history contained in 
these reports, then, is not only that made, but also that loritten 
by Northern men. 

As we have said, many of these were brave and true men, 
and one of them wrote that the acts committed by some of their 
commanders and comrades were enough to make him "ashamed 
of the flag that waved over him as he went into battle." Is it 
surprising that such was the case? 

It is said that General Hunter had to deprive forty of his 
commissioned officers of their commands before he could find one 
to carry into execution his infamous orders. 

We have drawn this contrast, then, between the way the war 
was conducted by the North and the way it was conducted by 
the South, for many good reasons, but especially to show that the 
Confederate soldiers never made war on defenceless women and 
children, whilst the Federal soldiers did, and that this was done 
with the sanction of some of their most noted leaders, some of 
whom, as we have seen, shared in the fruits of the depredations 
committed on these defenceless people. In doing this, we lelieve 
we have done only what was just to ourselves and our children. 

It must be remembered, too, that a large number of persons 
at the North still delight to speak of that war as a "Rebellion" 
and of us as "Rebels" and "Traitors." We have shown by^ the 
testimony of their own people, not only that they rebelled against, 
but overthrew the Constitution to male war on us, and that when 
they did go to war, they violated every rule they had laid down 
for the government of their armies, and waged it with a savage 
cruelty unknown in the history of civilization. 



104 Official Reports of the 

The late commancler-in-cliief of the British armies has re- 
cently written of our great leader, that "in a long and varied life 
of wandering, I have" (he says) "only met two men whom I 
prized as being above all the world I have ever Known, and the 
greater of these two was General Lee, America's greatest man, 
as I understand history." 

The present Chief Magistrate of this country wrote twelve years 
ago, that "the world has never seen better soldiers than those 
who followed Lee, and that their leader will undoubtedly rank 
as, without any exception, the greatest of all great captains that 
the English-speaking people have brought forth." See Life of 
Benton, page 38. 

Is it a matter of surprise, then, that the same hand should have 
recently written: 

" I am extremely proud of the fact that one of my uncles was 
an admiral in the Confederate Navy, and that another fired the 
last gun fired aboard the Alabama. I think'' (he says) "the time 
has now come when we can, all of us, be proud of the valor 
shown on both sides in the civil war." 

If President Eoosevelt really believed that his imcles were 
ever "rebels" and "traitors," would he be ''extremely proud" of 
that fact? Would he be proud to be the nephew of Benedict 
Arnold? ISTo; and no man at the ISTorth who knows anything of 
the formation of this Government believes for a moment that 
any Confederate soldier was a "rebel" or "traitor," or that the 
war on our part was a "Rebellion." Even Goldwin Smith, the 
harshest and most unjust historian to the South, who has ever 
written about the war (as demonstrated by our distinguished 
Past Grand Commander, Captain Cussons), says: 

"The Southern leaders ought not to have been treated as rebels," 
for, says he, "Secession was not a rebellion." 

And so we say the time has come when these intended oppro- 
brious epithets should cease to be used. But whether called 
"rebels" or not, the Confederate soldier has nothing to he ashamed 
of. Can the soldiers of the Federal armies read this record and 
say the same? 



History Committee, Grand Cmip, C. V. 105 

Yes, our comrades, let them call us "rebels," if the}^ will; we 
are proud of the title, and with good reason. More than a hun- 
dred years ago, when, as Pitt said, "even the chimney sweeps 
in London streets talked boastingly of their subjects in America," 
Eebel was the uniform title of those despised subjects (and as 
our own eloquent Keily once said) : 

"This sneer was the substitute for argument, which Camden 
and Chatham met in the Lords, and Burke and Barre in the 
Commons, as their eloquent voices were raised for justice to the 
Americans of the last century. T)isperse Eebels' was the opening 
gun at Lexington. 'Eebels' was the sneer of General Gage ad- 
dressed to the brave lads of Boston Commons. It was the title 
by which Dunmore attempted to stigmatize the Burgesses of Vir- 
ginia, and Sir Henry Clinton passionately denounced the patriotic 
women of New York. At the base of every statue which gratitude 
has erected to patriotism in America you will find 'Eebel' writ- 
ten. The springing shaft at Bunker Hill, the modest shaft 
which tells where Warren fell, * * * the fortresses which line 
our coasts, the name of our Country's Capital, the very streets of 
our cities — all proclaim America's boundless debt to rehels; not 
only to rebels who, like Hamilton and Warren, gave their first 
love and service to the young Eepublic, but rebels who, like Frank- 
lin and Washington, hrolce their oath of allegiance to become 
rebels." 

And so we say, let them call us what they may, the justice 
of our cause precludes fear on our part as to the final verdict of 
history. We can commit the principles for which we fought; we 
can confide the story of our deeds; we can consign the heritage 
of heroism we have bequeathed the world to posterity with the 
confident expectation of justice at the hands of the coming his- 
torian. 

" In seeds of laurel in the earth 

The blossoms of your fame is blown, 
And somewhere waiting for its birth 
The shaft is in the stone." 

Yes, truly. 

"The triumphs of might are transient— they pass and are for- 



106 Official Reports of the 

gotten — the sufferings of right are graven deepest in the chron- 
icle of nations," 

We have nothing to add to what has been stated in our former 
reports about the histories now used in our schools, since, as has 
been stated, we think they are the best now obtainable. 

We are glad to note that the Rev. J. William Jones, D. D., has 
had issued a new edition of his school history of the United States, 
which is a great improvement on the first edition, and that he is 
now preparing an edition for use in High Schools and Colleges. 
We are also informed that the Rev. Henry Alexander White, D. 
D., of Washington and Lee University, has in press a history of 
the United States. Judging from Dr. White's Life of General 
Lee, we shall be disappointed if his book is not a good one. 

We hail the advent of these works by Southern authors with 
the greatest interest and pleasure, and we feel satisfied that they 
are the natural and logical outcome of the efforts made by these 
Confederate Camps to have the Truth taught to our children. As 
we said in our last report, so we repeat here : We ask for nothing 
more, and will he satisfied ivith nothing less. 

Fiat justicia ruat coeluin, 

George L. C^iristian, 

Chairman. 



REPORT 

BY 

HON. GEO. L. CHRISTIAN, 

Chairman. 



ON THE TREATMENT AND EXCHANGE OF PRISONERS. 



October 23, 1902. 



REPORT OF OCTOBER 23, 1902. 



To the Grand Camp of Confederate Veterans of Virginia: 

Your History Committee again returns its thanks to you, and 
the public, for the veiy cordial way in which you have shown your 
appreciation of its labors, as contained in its last three reports. It 
may interest you to know, that whilst these reports have been pub- 
lished and scattered broadcast over this land, no attempt has been 
made to controvert or deny any principle contended for, or fact 
asserted, in any of them, so far as we have heard. We think we 
can, therefore. Justly claim that the following facts have been estab- 
lished : 

First. That the South did not go to luar to maintain, or to per- 
petuate, the institution of slavery. 

Second. The right of secession (the real issue of the war), and 
that this right was first asserted at the North, and as clearly recog- 
nized there as at the South. 

Third. That the North, and not the South, ivas the aggressor in 
bringing on the war. 

Fo-urth. That on the part of the South the war was conducted 
according to the principles of civilized loarfarc, lohilst on the part 
of the North it was conducted in the most inhuman and harharom 
manner. 

The last of the above named was the subject of our last re- 
port, in which we drew a contrast between the way the war was 
conducted on our part, and the way it was conducted by our 
quondam enemies, which, we think, was greatly to the credit of 
the South. The subject of this report, the 

"Treatment and Exchange of Prisoners/' 

is really a continuation and further discussion of the contrast 
begun in that report, and a necessary sequel to that discussion. 
The further treatment of this subject becomes most important, 
too, from the fact that our people know very little about the 

[109] 



110 Official Reports of the 

true state of the case, whilst both during and since the war, the 
people of the North, with the superior means at their command, 
have denounced and maligned the South and its leaders as mur- 
derers and assassins, and illustrated these charges by the alleged 
inhuman and barbarous way in which the South treated their pris- 
oners during the late war : e. g., the late James G. Blaine, of Maine, 
said on the floor of the United States Congress in 1876 : 

"Mr. Davis was the author, knowingly, deliberately, guiltily and 
wilfully of the gigantic murder and crime at Andersonville, and 
I here before God, measuring my words, knowing their full ex- 
tent and import, declare, that neither the deeds of the D'uke of 
Alva in the Low Countries, nor the massacre of Saint Bartholo- 
mew, nor the thumb-screws and engines of torture of the Spanish 
Inquisition, begin to compare in atrocity with the hideous crimes 
of Andersonville ;" and he quoted and endorsed a report of a com- 
mittee of the Federal Congress made during the war, in which they 
say: 

"N"o pen can describe, no painter sketch, no imagination com- 
prehend, its fearful and unutterable iniquity. It would seem that 
the concentrated madness of earth and hell had found its final 
lodgment in the breasts of those who had inaugurated the rebel- 
lion and controlled the policy of the Confederate Government, and 
that the prison at Andersonville had been selected for the most 
terrible human sacrifice which the world had ever seen." 

It is true that the statement made by Mr. Blaine was denied, 
and its falsity fully shown by both Mr. Davis and Senator Hill, 
of Georgia; and the report of the Committee of the Federal Con- 
gress, and an equally slanderous and partisan publication entitled 
''N'arration of Sufferings in Eebel Military Prisons" (with hideous 
looking skeleton illustrations of alleged victims), issued by the 
United States Sanitary Commission in 1864, were fully answered 
by a counter report of a committee of the Confederate Congress. 
And it is also true that in 1876, the Eev. John William Jones, 
D. D., who was then editing the Southern Historical Society Pa- 
pers, made a full and masterly investigation and report on this 
subject, vindicating the South and its leaders from these asper- 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. Y. 



Ill 



sions (for which work, as said in our last report, the Southern 
people owe Dr. Jones a lasting debt of gratitude). (The letter 
of Mr. Davis, the report of the Committee of the Confederate Con- 
gress, with other valuable material collected by Dr. Jones, are all 
published in the first volume of the Southern Historical ' Papers, 
and also in a separate volume.) But whilst these publications 
were most satisfactory to us at the time, they, necessarily, did not 
contain the contemporaneous correspondence in reference to the 
exchange and treatment of prisoners, contained in the publication 
knoT^Ti as "Eebellion Official Records," published by the Federal 
Government since that time — a correspondence invaluable, as it 
makes the representatives of the two Governments, at the time, 
tell, in their own way, the true story of these events. It is from 
these letters and other contemporaneous orders and papers, that 
we propose to show wliicli side was responsible for Andersonville, 
Salisbury, "The Libby," and "Belle Isle," in the South, and for 
Camp Douglas, Gratiot Street, Fort Delaware, Johnson's Lsland, 
Elmira, Point Lookout, and other like places in the ISTorth. In 
doing this we do not think it either necessary or proper to revive 
the tales of horror and misery contained in many of the personal 
recitals of the captives on either side, such as are collected in the 
works of Dr. Jones, the "Sanitary- Commission," and others. Many 
of these are simply heart-sickening and disgusting; and, making 
allowances for all exaggerations necessarily incident to the sur- 
roundings of the vrriters, there is enough in them to convince any 
candid reader that there were cruelties and abuses inflicted on 
helpless prisoners, by petty officers and guards, that should never 
have been inflicted, and which we hope the higher officers of neither 
government would have permitted or tolerated for a moment. 

But what we are concerned about is, to show by these "official 
records" that neither Mr. Davis, nor any Department or representa- 
tive of the Confederate Go-vernment, was responsible for the estab- 
lishment of these prisons, and the sufferings therein, as heretofore 
charged by our enemies, and thai the Federal Government, through 
Edwin M. Stanton, H. W. Ealleck, and U. 8. Grant as its repre- 
sentative actors, ivas directly and solely responsible for the estab- 



113 Official Reports of the 

lisJiment of these places^ and consequently for all the sufferings 
and deaths which occurred therein. 

The reports and correspondence relative to the exchange and 
treatment of prisoners fill four of the large volnmes of the "Re- 
bellion Eecords," and whilst we have striven to tell the full story, 
or rather, to omit nothing essential to the truth, it is simply im- 
possible, within the limits of this report, to do more than call at- 
tention to some of the more important and salient features of the 
correspondence, etc., and only to an extent necessary to disclose 
the real conditions at the several dates referred to. This is all 
that we have attempted to do, but we have tried to do this faith- 
fully. 

The Policy of the Confedeeate Government as Shown by 
Acts of Congress, Etc. 

To show the declared purpose and policy of the Confederate 
Government towards prisoners of war from the beginning: 
As early as May 21st, 1861, two months before the first battle of 
Manassas, the Confederate Congress passed an act providing that — 

"All prisoners of war taken, whether on land or at sea, during 
the pending hostilities with the United States, shall be transferred 
by the captors from time to time, and as often as convenient, to 
the Department of War; and it shall be the duty of the Secretary 
of War, with the approval of the President, to issue such instruc- 
tions to the Quartermaster-General, and his subordinates, as shall 
provide for the safe custody and sustenance of prisoners of war; 
and thnt rations furnished prisoners of umr shall he the same in 
quantity and quality as those furnished to enlisted men in the 
Army of the Confederacy." 

By a.n Act of February, 1864, the Quartermaster-General was 
relieved of this duty, and the Commissary-General of Subsistence 
was ordered to provide for the sustenance of prisoners of war, and 
according to General Orders ISTo. 159, Adjutant and Inspector Gener- 
al's Office, it was provided that "Hospitals for prisoners of war 
are' placed on the same footing as other Confederate States' Hos- 
pitals in all respects, and will he managed accordingly." 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 113 

General Lee's Orders, 

General Lee, in his testimony before the Eeconstruction Com- 
mittee of Congress, says of the treatment of prisoners on the 
field : 

"The orders always were, that the whole field should be treated 
alike. Parties were sent out to take the Federal wounded, as well 
as the Confederate, and the surgeons were told to treat the one as 
they did the other. These orders given ly me were respected on 
every field." 

And there is nothing in all the records, so far as we can find, 
which indicates that any Department of the Confederate Govern- 
ment, or any representative of any such Department, failed to 
carry out these provisions of the law, and these orders, as far as 
they were able to do so. Of course, there were times when, by 
reason of insufficient transportation, and insufficient supplies of 
food and clothing of all kinds, it w^as simply impossible to get 
proper supplies and in sufficient quantities to prevent great suf- 
fering among the prisoners in Southern prisons. But this was 
equally true as to the Confederate soldiers in the field, and the asser- 
tion on page 68 of the before-referred-to publication by the JSTorth- 
em Sanitary Commission, headed by Dr. Valentine Mott, shows 
its partisanry and worthlessness as history, when it charges the 
Confederate authorities with "deliberately withholding necessary 
food from their prisoners of war, and furnishing them with what 
was indigestible and loathsome, when their own army was abun- 
dantly supplied Avith good and wholesome food :" * * * "of 
depriving their prisoners of their own clothing, and also of with- 
holding the issue of sufficient to keep them warm when the sol- 
diers of their own army were well equipped and well protected from 
exposure to wet and cold." The world now knows, that at the 
very time when these false charges were being formulated, the 
Confederate soldiers in the field were almost naked and starving, 
and that nearly ninety per cent, of the rest of their equipment 
had been captured from their enemy in battle. 
7 



114 Official Reports of the 

Exchange of Prisoners. 

From the very beginning, the Confederate authorities were 
anxious to make an arrangement for the exchange of prisoners, 
and, indeed, that the war should be conducted in all of its features 
on the highest and most humane plane known to civilized nations. 
To that end Mr. Davis wrote Mr. Lincoln on July 6th, 1861, as 
follows : 

"It is the desire of this Government so to conduct the war now 
existing, as to mitigate its horrors as far as may be possible; and 
with this intent, its treatment of the prisoners captured by its 
forces has been marked by the greatest humanity and leniency 
consistent with public obligation. Some have been permitted to 
return home on parole, others to remain at large under similar 
conditions, within this Confederacy, and all have been furnished 
with rations for their subsistence, such as are allowed to our own 
troops." 

This letter was sent to Washington by a special messenger (Col. 
Taylor) ; but he was refused an audience with Mr. Lincoln, and was 
forced to content himself with a verbal reply from General Scott 
to the effect that the letter had been delivered to Mr. Lincoln, and 
that he would reply to it in writing as soon as possible. But no 
answer ever came. 

For nearly a year after the war began, although many pris- 
oners were captiired and released on parole, on both sides, the Fed- 
eral authorities refused to enter into any arrangement for the ex- 
change of prisoners, taking the absurd position that they would not 
treat with "rebels" in any way which would recognize them as bel- 
ligerents. The English government had already recognized us 
as "belligerents" as early as May, 1861. As the Earl of Derby 
tersely said in the House of Lords: 

"The Northern States could not claim the rights of belligerents 
for themselves, and, on the other hand, deal with other parties, 
not as belligerents, but as rebels." 

After a while the pressure on the Federal authorities by friends 
of the prisoners was so great that they were induced to agree to 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 



115 



a cartel for the exchange of prisoners on the very basis offered by 
the Confederates in the beginning. These negotiations were com- 
menced on the 14th of February, 1862, Gen. John E. Wool repre- 
senting the Federals and Gen. Howell Cobb the Confederates the 
only unsettled point at that time being that General Wool was 
nnwillmg that each party should agree to pay the expenses of 
transporting their prisoners to the frontier; and this question he 
promised to refer to his Government. At a second interview on 
March 1st, 1862, General Wool informed General Cobb that his 
Government would not consent to pay these expenses, and there- 
upon General Cobb promptly receded from this demand and a-reed 
to accept the terms offered by General Wool. General Woof had 
stated m the beginning that he alone was clothed tvith full power 
to effect this arrangement, but lie now stated that his Government 
"had changed his instnictions." And so these negotiations were 
broken off, and matters left as before they were begun. 

The real reason for this change was 'that in the meantime the 
capture of Forts Henry and Donaldson had given the Federals a 
preponderance in the number of prisoners. Soon, however, Jack- 
son's Valley campaign, the battles around Richmond, and other 
Confederate successes, gave the Confederates the preponderance, 
and this change of conditions induced the Federals to consent to 
terms, to which the Confederates had always been ready to accede. 

And so on July 22nd, 1862, Gen. John A. Dix, representing 
the Federals, and Gen. D. H. Hill, the Confederates, at Haxall's 
Landing, on James river, in Charles City county, entered into the 
cartel which thereafter formed the basis for the exchange of pris- 
oners during the rest of the war whenever it was allowed by the 
Federals to be in operation. Article four of this cartel provided 
as follows : 

"All prisoners of war, to be discharged on parole, in ten days 
after their capture, and the prisoners now held and those hereafter 
taken, to be transferred to the points mutually agreed upon, at 
the expense of the capturing party." 

Article six provided that — 

"The stipulations and provisions above mentioned are to be 



lie Official Reports of the 

of binding obligation during the continuance of the war, it mat- 
ters not which party may have the surplus of prisoners." * * * 
" That all prisoners, of whatever arm of the service, are to be ex- 
changed or paroled in ten days from the time of their capture, 
if it be practicable to transfer them to their own lines, in that 
time; if not, as soon thereafter as practicable." 

Article nine provided that — 

"In case any misunderstanding shall arise in regard to any 
clause or stipulation in the foregoing articles, it is mutually agreed 
that such misunderstanding shall not interrupt the release of pris- 
oners on parole, as herein provided; but shall be made the sub- 
ject of friendly explanation, in order that the object of this agree- 
ment may neither be defeated nor postponed." 

It is readily seen that both General Dix and General Hill acted 
with the utmost good faith in the formation of this cartel, with 
a common purpose in view, to the carrying out of which each 
pledged the good faith of his Government; and in Article nine 
they made ample provision to prevent any cessation in the work 
of exchanging promptly all prisoners captured during the war. 
And we now propose to shoAv that this would have been the case 
but for the bad faith and bad conduct of the representatives of the 
Federal Government. 

As was contemplated by the cartel, each of the two Governments 
appointed its Commissioners of Exchange to carry it into execu- 
tion. On the part of the Federals, Major General E. A. Hitch- 
cock was appointed, with two assistants, Col. Wm. H. Ludlow, 
and Captain (afterward Brigadier-General) John E. Mulford, as 
assistants. On the part of the Confederates, the late Judge Eob- 
ert Ould, of the Eichmond (Va.) Bar, was the sole representative. 
The writer had the privilege of knowing both General Mulford and 
Judge Ould well, and, in his opinion, no better selections could 
have been made by their respective Governments. Judge Ould 
was a man of splendid judicial bearing, singular honesty of pur- 
pose and kindness of heart, with capacity both in speaking and 
in writing, to represent his Government with unsurpassed ability. 
General Mulford was a man of fair abilities, and of great kind- 



History Commiitee, Grand Camp, C. V. 117 

ness of heart. Of General Hitchcock and Colonel Ludlow, he can 
only speak from what they disclose of their characteristics in their 
letters. General Hitchcock exhibits profound distrust of what 
he terms the "rebel" authorities in all of his letters, and fre- 
quently displays a temper and impatience, seemingly, not war- 
ranted by the surrounding circumstances. Colonel Ludlow, at 
times, exhibits great fairness; at other times, manifest unfair- 
ness, but always displays slirewdness and ability. 

There is abundant evidence in these records to show that the 
true reason why Mr. Lincoln did not reply to Mr. Davis's letter 
of July Gth, 1861, hereinbefore quoted, was that he and the other 
authorities at Washington did not intend from the beginning to 
conduct the war, in any of its features, according to the recog- 
nized principles of civilized warfare, although they had adopted 
the rules of Dr. Leiber apparently for this purpose, as the law to 
govern the conduct of their armies in the field. As conclusive 
evidence of this, it was shown in our last report that on the vei7 
day of the date of the cartel, the Federal Secretary of War, by 
order of Mr. Lincoln, issued an order to the Military Command- 
ers in Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mis- 
sissippi, Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas, directing them to seize 
and use any property belonging to citizens of the Confederacy 
which might be "necessary or convenient for their several com- 
mands," without making any provision for compensation therefor. 
About tlie same time, and doubtless by the same autliority. Gen- 
erals Pope and Steinwehr issued their infamous orders, also re- 
ferred to in our last report. All of these orders were so contrary 
to all the rules of civilized warfare, and especially to those adopted 
by the Federal authorities themselves, that on August 1, 1862 (just 
ten days from the date of the cartel), the Confederate authorities 
were driven to the necessity of issuing an order declaring, among 
other things, that Pope and Steinwehr and the commissioned offi- 
cers of their commands, "had chosen for themselves (to use Gen- 
eral Lee's words) the position of rollers and murderers, and not 
that of public enemies, entitled, if captured, to be treated as pris- 
oners of war." Later on, in the fall of that year, came the bar- 



118 Official Reports of the 

barons orders and conduct of Generals Milroy, Butler and Hunter, 
which led to the proclamations of outlawry against these officers, 
and directing that they and their commissioned officers should not 
be treated, if captured, as prisoners of war, and, therefore should 
not be exchanged, but kept in confinement. 

In September, 1862, Mr. Lincoln's emancipation proclamation 
was issued, to take effect January 1st following, which caused Mr. 
Davis to issue another proclamation on December 23rd, 1862, di- 
recting that any Federal officer who should be arrested whilst either 
enrolling, or in command of negroes, who were slaves, should be 
turned over to the authorities of the several States in which the of- 
fenses were committed, and punished for the crime of inciting ser- 
vile insurrection. These several proclamations of Mr. Davis created 
considerable uneasiness among the Federal authorities, and fur- 
nished the very' pretext for which they were doubtless longing, for 
either violating, or suspending, the terms of the cartel. And so on 
January 16th, 1863, we find Colonel Ludlow writing to his supe- 
rior, General Hitchcock, as follows : 

"I have the honor to enclose to you a copy of the Richmond 
Enquirer, containing Jeff. Davis' message. His determination, 
avowed in most insolent terms, to deliver to the several State au- 
thorities all commissioned officers of the United States that may 
hereafter be captured, will, I think, be persevered in. You will 
remember that after the proclamation of Jeff. Davis, of Dec. 23rd, 
1863, I urgently advised another interview (the last one I had 
with Mr. Ould, and in which very important exchanges were de- 
clared). I then did so anticipating that the cartel might be 
broken, and wishing to m.ake sure of the discharge from their pa- 
role of 10,000 of our men. This was effected, and in a manner 
so advantageous to our Government that we gained in the count 
of 20,000 exchanged, about 7,000 men. I had almost equally 
good success in the exchange declared on November 11th, 1862. If 
an open rupture should now occur, in the execution of the cartel, 
we are well prepared for it. I am endeavoring to get away from 
the Confederate prisons all our officers captured previously to the 
date of the message of Jeff. Davis (the 12th instant), with what 
success I shall know early next week." 

(See Series II., Vol. V., Eeb., Eec. Serial 118, p. 181.) 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 119 

This transaction, of which we find Col. Ludlow thus boasting 
to his superior, will surely be sufficient to establish his reputation 
for shrewdness as a trader, or exchanger. So flagrant had been 
the violations of the cartel and the abuses committed by the Fed- 
erals in pretending to carry it out, (some of which are confessed, 
as we have just seen, by Col. Ludlow), that on January 17th, 1863 
Judge Ould wrote Col. Ludlow, complaining in the strongest 
terms, and stating that if he (Col. Ludlow) had any Confederate 
officer in his possession, or on parole, he would be exchanged for 
his equivalent. But that beyond that, he would not, and could 
not, parole commissioned officers then in his possession, but would 
continue to parole non-commissioned officers and privates. He 
said : 

"This course has been forced on the Confederate Government, 
not only by the refusal of the authorities of the United States to 
respond to the repeated applications of this Government in rela- 
tion to the execution of Mumford, but by their persistence in re- 
taining Confederate officers who were entitled to parole and ex- 
change." 

He said further : 

'TTou have now, of captures that are by no means recent, many 
officers of the Confederate service, who are retained in your mili- 
tary prisons East and West. Applications have been made for 
the release of same without success, and others have been kept in 
confinement so long as to justify the conclusion that you refuse 
both to parole and exchange." Id., pp. 186-7. 

Judge Ould then called Col. Ludlow's attention to several in- 
stances of these abuses and mistakes, and asked that they be cor- 
rected. In his letter of January 25th. 1863, he says: 

"If any injustice has been done to you by our agreement, about 
reducing officers to privates, or in any other subject matter, I 
will promptly redress it." * * * "There must be many offi- 
cers in your and our possession who, by our agreement, made at 
the last interview, were declared exchanged. Such certainly ought 
to be mutually delivered up. The excess is on our side, but I 
will stand it because I have agreed to it. I must, however, insist 



120 Official Reports of the 

upon the immediate delivery of such of our officers as are included 
in the agreement." P. 213. 

On December 30th, 1862', the following order was issued by 
Gen. H. W. Halleck, signing himself as "Gen'l.-in-Chief" : 

"ISTo officers, prisoners of war, will be released on parole till 
further orders." Id., p. 248. 

This, he said, was done in consequence of the course then being 
pursued by the Confederate authorities. But notwithstanding this 
order, and this action of the Confederate authorities here com- 
plained of, exchanges seem to have gone on, the Commissioners on 
either side constantly complaining that his adversary had broken 
the cartel. And on April 11th, 1863, we find Judge Ould again 
writing Colonel Ludlow, saying: 

"I am very much surprised at your refusal to deliver officers 
for those of your own, who have been captured, paroled and re- 
leased by us since the date of the proclamation and message of 
President Davis. The refusal is not only a flagrant breach of the 
cartel, but can be supported on no rule of reciprocity or equity." 
* * * "You have charged us with breaking the cartel. With 
what sort of justice can that allegation be supported, when 3^ou de- 
livered only a few days ago over ninety officers, most of whom 
had been forced to languish and suffer in prison for months be- 
fore we were compelled, by that and other reasons, to issue the 
retaliatory order of which you complain? Those niriety-odd are 
not half of those whom you unjustly held in prison. On the other 
hand, I defy you to name the case of one who is confined by us, 
whom our Government has declared exchanged. Is it your idea 
that we are to be bound by every strictness of the cartel, while you 
are at liberty to violate it for months, and that, too, not only in a 
few cases, but hundreds?" * * * "If captivity, privation and 
misery are to be the fate of officers on both sides hereafter, let God 
judge between us. I have struggled in this matter as if it had been 
a matter of life and death to me. I am heart-sick at the termina- 
tion, but I have no self-reproaches." Id., p. 469. 

In Ludlow's reply to this letter, he simply says Judge Ould 
was mistaken in his charges and complaints, but he did not sue- 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 121 

ceed in pointing out one single instance in which Judge Ould 
was in error. 

N'otwithstanding all these charges and counter charges, ex- 
changes still went on, and so we find Colonel Ludlow reporting to 
Secretary Stanton on May 5th, 1863, as follows : 

"I have just returned from City Point, and have brought with 
me all my officers who have been held by the Confederates, and 
whom I send to City Point to-night. I have made the following 
declarations of exchanges : 

(1) "All officers and enlisted men, and all persons, whatever 
may have been their classification or character, who have been 
delivered at City Point up to the 6th of May, 1853. 

(2) "All officers who have been captured and released on parole 
up to April 1st, 1863, wherever they may have been captured. 
* * * Id., p. 559, See also, p. 564. 

It seems that the Confederate Congress had refused to sustain 
Mr. Davis, in his suggested retaliatory measures about the treat- 
ment of officers to the extent he had recommended, and so ex- 
changes went on with the result as just above reported, up to May 
6th, 1863, and ^^ni\\ but few, if any, complaints against the Con- 
federates of ill treatment to prisoners to that time. But how 
does the case stand, in this respect, at this time, with the Fed- 
erals ? We have only space here for two quotations to show this, 
and both of these are from their own witnesses, and it would seem 
that these would offset "Andersonville," "The Libby," or any other 
place this side of the infernal regions. 

On February 9th, 1862, Judge Ould wrote Col. Ludlow: 

"I see from your own papers, that some dozen of our men cap- 
tured at Arkansas Pass were alloived to freeze to death in one 
night at Camp Douglas. I appeal to our common instincts, against 
such atrocious inhumanity." Id., p. 25.7. 

We find no denial of this charge. On May 10th, 1863, Dr. 
Wm. H. Van Buren, of 'New York, on behalf of the United States 
"Sanitary Commission,^' reported to the Secretary of War the 
condition of the hospitals of the prisoners at Camp Douglas, near 
Chicago, and Gratiot street, St. Louis. In tliis report he incor- 



123 Official Reports of the 

porates the statements of Drs. Hun and Cogswell, of Albany, N. 
Y., who had been employed by the Sanitary Commission to in- 
spect hospitals, and Dr. Van Buren commends these gentlemen 
as men of high character and eminent fitness for the work to 
which they had been assigned. It is from the statement of these 
Northern gentlemen that we quote. They caption their report 
from Albany, April 6th, 1863, and say, among other things, as 
follows : 

"In our experience, we have never witnessed eo painful a spec- 
tacle as that presented by these wretched inmates; without change 
of clothing, covered with vermin, they lie in cots, without mat- 
tresses, or with mattresses furnished by private charity, without 
sheets or bedding of any kind, except blankets, often in rags; in 
wards reeking v.dth filth and foul air. The stench is most offen- 
sive. We carefully avoid all exaggeration of statement, but we 
give some facts which speak for themselves. From January 27th, 
1863, when the prisoners (in number about 3,800) arrived at 
Camp Douglas, to February 18th, the day of our visit, 385 patients 
have been admitted to the hospitals, of whom 130 have died. This 
mortality of 33 per cent, does not express the whole truth, for of 
the 148 patients then remaining in the hospital a large number 
must have since died. Besides this, 130 prisoners have died in 
barracks, not having been able to gain admission even to the mis- 
erable accommodations of the hospital, and at the time of our 
visit 150 persons were sick in barracks waiting for room in hos- 
pital. Thus it will be seen that 260 out of the 3,800 prisoners 
had died in twenty-one days, a rate of mortality which, if con- 
tinued, would secure their total extermination in about 320 days." 

They then go on to describe the conditions at St. Louis, show- 
ing them to be even worse than at Chicago, and after stating that 
the conditions of these prisons are "discreditable to a Christian 
people," they add: 

"It surely is not the intention of our Government to place these 
prisoners in a position which will secure their extermination by 
pestilence in less than a year." See, also, report of U. S. Sur- 
geon A. M. Clark, Series II., Vol. VI., p. 371. See, also. Id., p. 
113. 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 123 

Is it not a little surprising, that when the representatives of 
this same "Sanitary Commission" published their savage and par- 
tisan report in September, 1864, as to the way their prisoners 
were being treated in Southern prisons, which report they had 
adorned with pictures of skeletons alleged to have come from our 
prison hospitals, they did not make some allusion to the condi- 
tion of things as found by them in their own hospitals? 

But as further evidence of violations of the cartel, it will be 
seen that on May 13th, 1863, Judge Ould wrote to Col. Ludlow 
again calling his attention to the "large number of our officers 
captured long since and still held by them" ; threatened retaliation 
if the unjust and harsh course then pursued by the Federals to- 
wards our officers was persevered in; and concluded as follows: 

"Nothing is now left as to those whom our protests have failed 
to release, but to resort to retaliation. The Confederate Govern- 
ment is anxious to avoid a resort to that harsh measure. In its 
name I maJce a final appeal for that justice to our imprisoned offi- 
cers and men which your own agreements have declared to he their 
due." Id., p. 607. 

Again, on the next day, he wrote, naming several of Mosb/s 
men who had been carried to the Old Capitol prison. He then 
said: 

"They are retained under the allegation that they are bush- 
whackers and guerrillas. Mosby's command is in the Confederate 
service in every sense of the term. He is regularly commissioned, 
and his force is as strictly Confederate as any in our army. Why 
is this done? This day I have cleaned every prison in my con- 
trol as far as I know. If there is any detention anywhere let 
me know and I will rectify it. I am compelled to complain of 
this thing in almost every communication. You will not deem 
me passionate when I assure you it will not be endured any 
longer. If these men are not delivered, a stem retaliation will 
be made immediately." Id., p. 632. 

Again on the 22nd of May, 1863, he wrote, saying: 

"You are well aware, that for the last six months I have been 
presenting to you lists of Confederate officers and soldiers and 



124 Official Reports of the 

Coiifederate citizens, who have been detained by your authorities 
in their prisons. Some of these, on my remonstrance, have been 
released and sent to us, but by far the greater number remain in 
captivity." 

He then tells Colonel Ludlow, that he is satisfied that he (Lud- 
low) has tried to have these prisoners released, but without avail, 
and then tells him again that the Confederates were compelled to 
notify him that they must resort to retaliation; but telling him 
further that he will be notified of each case in which this course 
is pursued. 

On the same day he wrote another letter calling Ludlow's atten- 
tion to the report that Captains McGraw and Corbin had been 
tried and sentenced to be shot for recruiting for the Confederates 
in Kentucky, and saying that if these men were executed the Con- 
federate authorities had selected two captains for execution in 
retaliation; and he concludes this letter with this significant lan- 
guage : 

"In view of the awful vortex into which things are plunging, I 
give you notice, that in the event of the execution of these per- 
sons, retaliation to an equal extent at least, will be visited upon 
your own officers, and if that is found ineffectual the number will 
be increased. The Great Euler of ISTations must judge who is re- 
sponsible for the initiation of this chapter of horrors. Id., p. 
690-1. 

In a letter of January 5th, 1^63, Judge Ould wrote: 

"ISTothing is nearer my heart than to prevent on either side a 
resort to retaliation. Even if made necessary by course of events, 
it is much to be deplored. These are not only my own personal 
views, hut those of my Government." 

It is almost unnecessary to say that, of course, these complaints 
and threats and appeals, would not have been made, at the time, 
and in the manner they were made, had not just cause existed 
therefor, and that the Federal authorities were solely responsible 
for the condition of affairs then existing. (See another letter of 
the same date on the same page as to political prisoners.) 

This being the condition of things, on May 25th, 1863, the fol- 
lowing order was issued by the Federals : 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 125 

"War Department, Washington, D. C, May 25, 1863. 
General Schofield: 

"No Confederate officer will be paroled or exchanged till fur- 
ther orders. They will be kept in close confinement, and be 
strongly guarded. Those already paroled will be confined. 

" H. W. Halleck, 

"" General-in-Chief." 

And similar orders were sent to all commanders of Federal 
forces throughout the country. Id., p. 696. See, also, pp. 706-7, 
722. 

It is surely unnecessary then, after reading these letters, and 
this order, to say which side was responsible for violations of the 
cartel while it remained in operation, and for the suspension of 
its Qperations, as well as for the first maltreatment of prisoners. 

With the exception of exchanges in individual cases, this sus- 
pension of the cartel continued. So that, on July 2nd, 1863, Mr. 
Davis addressed a letter to Mr. Lincoln in which he said, among 
other things, after referring to the differences that had arisen be- 
tween the Commissioners in carrying out the cartel, and the hard- 
ships incurred by reason of its suspension — as follows : 

"I believe I have just gi'ound of complaint against the officers 
and forces under your commq,nd, for breach of the cartel, 
and being myself ready to execute it at all times, and in good faith, 
I am not justified in doubting the existence of the same disposi- 
tion on your part. In addition to this matter, I have to complain 
of the conduct of your officers and troops in many parts of the 
country, who violate all the rules of war by carrying on hostilities, 
not only against armed foes, but against non-combatants, aged men, 
women and children, while others not only seize such property aa 
is required for the use of your troops, but destroy all private prop- 
erty within their reach, even agricultural implements, and openly 
avow the purpose of seeking to subdue the population of the dis- 
tricts where they are operating by starvation that must result from 



136 Official Reports of the 

the destruction of standing crops and agricultural tools. Still 
again others of your officers in different districts have recently 
taken the lives of prisoners who fell into their power, and justify 
their act by asserting a right to treat as spies the military officers 
and enlisted men under my command who may penetrate into 
States recognized by us as our allies in the warfare now waged 
against the United States, but claimed by the latter as having re'- 
fused to engage in such warfare. I have therefore on different 
occasions been forced to make complaints of these outrages, and 
to ask from you, that you either avow or disclaim having author- 
ized them, and have failed to obtain such answer as the usages of 
civilized warfare require to be given in such cases. These usages 
justify and indeed require redress by retaliation as the proper 
means of repressing such cruelties as are not permitted in warfare 
between Christian peoples. I have, notwithstanding, refrained from 
the exercise of such retaliation because of its obvious tendency to 
lead to war of indiscriminate massacre on both sides, which would 
be a spectacle so shocking to humanity, and so disgi'aceful to the 
age in which we live, and the religion we profess, that I cannot 
contemplate it without a feeling of horror that I am disinclined 
to doubt you would share. With the view then of making our 
last solemn attempt to avert such calamities, and to attest my 
earnest desire to prevent them, if possible, I have selected the 
bearer of this letter, the Hon. Alexander H. Stephens, as a Mili- 
tary Commissioner, to proceed to your headquarters, under flag 
of truce, there to confer and agree on the subjects above men- 
tioned ; and I do hereby authorize the said Alexander H. Stephens 
to arrange and settle all differences and disputes, which have 
arisen, or may arise in the execution of the cartel for exchange 
of prisoners of war, heretofore agreed on between our respective 
land and naval forces; also to prevent further misunderstandings 
as to the terms of said cartel, and finally to enter into such ar- 
rangement and understanding about the mode of carrying on hos- 
tilities between the belligerents as shall confine the severities of 
the war within such limits as are rightfully imposed, not only by 
modern civilization, but by our common Christianity." Eeb. Eec, 
Series II., Vol. VI., p. 75-6. 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 127 

On the 4th of July, 1863, Mr. Stephens, accompanied by Judge 
Ould, took the foregoing letter and proceeded down the James river 
under flag of truce, for the purpose of delivering the letter, and 
of conferring with Mr. Lincoln. They were stopped by the block- 
ading squadron, under the command of Acting Rear- Admiral S. P. 
Lee, near :N'ewport j^ews, and Mr. Stephens then communicated 
to Admiral Lee the nature of his mission. This communication 
to Admiral Lee was reported to the Secretary of the Navy, Mr. 
Gideon Wells, and by the latter to the Secretary of War, Mr. 
Edwin M. Stanton. After Mr. Stephens had been kept for two 
days awaiting a reply, he was informed that the Secretary of War 
refused to permit him to proceed further on the ground that " the 
customary agents and channels are considered adequate for all 
needful communications and conferences." See Mr. Stephens' 
report. Id., p. 94. 

Between the date of Mr. Davis' letter and the 6th of July, when 
the refusal came to allow Mr. Stephens to proceed further on his 
attempted mission of mercy and justice, Gettysburg had been 
fought, and Vicksburg had fallen, and these disasters to the Con- 
federates had not only made the Federals arrogant, but had also 
given them for the first time since the cartel a preponderance of 
prisoners, and hence from that time forward, their interest and 
their policy was to throw every obstacle possible in the way of the 
further exchanges of prisoners. 

The foregoing letter of Mr. Davis exhibits the loftiest states- 
manship and Christian cbaracter. and should inspire us with a 
new desire to do honor to his memory, as well as fill us with pride 
that we had as our civil leader, one so noble, so humane, so just and 
so true. 

It is interesting to us to laiow that Mr. Davis and General Lee 
were in full accord in their views on the question of retaliating on 
prisoners for offences committed by others. On the 13th of July, 
1864, Mr. Seddon, the Confederate Secretary of War, wrote to 
General Lee, calling his attention to the murder of two citizens 
in the Valley of Virginia by General Hunter's orders, or by his 
command, suggesting that some course of retaliation should 



128 Official Reports of the 

be put in operation to prevent further atrocities of the kind, and 
asking General Lee "What measure of punishment or retaliation 
should be adopted?" (Id., p. 464.) To this inquiry General 
Lee replied as follows: 

"I have on several occasions expressed to the Department my 
views as to the system of retaliation, and revolting as are the cir- 
cumstances attending the murder of the citizens above mentioned, 
I can see nothing to distinguish them from other outrages of a 
like character that have from time to time been brought to the 
attention of the Government. As I have said before, if the guilty 
parties could be taken, either the officer who commands, or the 
soldier who executes such atrocities, I should not hesitate to advise 
the infliction of the extreme punishment they deserve, but I cannot 
think it right or politic, to make the innocent, after they have sur- 
rendered as prisoners of war, suffer for the guilty." * * * 

On this letter, Mr. Davis makes this endorsement: 

"The views of General Lee I regard as just and appropriate." 

Contrast this letter and this endorsement with the treatment 
accorded by General Sherman to prisoners, as detailed by him on 
page 194, Vol. II, of his Memoirs, and you will see the difference 
between the conduct of a Christian and a savage. 

But we must proceed with the subject of the exchange of pris- 
oners. Some time in the summer of 1S63, Gen. S. A. Meredith 
was appointed a Federal Commissioner of Exchange, and in Sep- 
tember Judge Quid attempted to open negotiations with him, for 
a resumption of the cartel. To this attempt by letter no reply 
was received. He renewed these efforts on October 20th, 1863, 
saying— 

"I now propose that all officers and men on both side^f be re- 
leased in conformity with the provisions of the cartel, the excess 
on one side or the other, to be on parole. Will you accept this? 
I have no expectation of an answer, but perhaps you may give 
one. If it does come, I hope it vdll be soon." Id., p. 401. 

But nothing was accomplished by both of these efforts. Some 
time in November or December, 1863, Gen. B. F. Butler was ap- 
pointed the Federal Commissioner of Exchange. It will be re- 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 129 

membered that this man had been outlawed by the Confederate 
authorities prior to this time and it was openly charged, and gen- 
erally believed, that this appointment was made solely to make 
communication between the belligerents the more diiBcult by em- 
barrassing the Confederates, and consequently to throw this addi- 
tional obstacle in the way of further exchange of prisoners. 

Immediately on taking charge, General Butler says he saw Mr. 
Stanton, Secretary of War, and suggested that the Confederate 
prisoners in their hands, should be sheltered, fed, clad and other- 
wise treated as Federal prisoners were being treated by us; and 
this suggestion, he says, Mr. Stanton at once assented to. (See 
Butler's Book, p. 585.) In other words, he says, in effect, that 
because the Confederates, in their exhaustion and poverty, could 
not adequately supply the needs of their men in our prisons, there- 
fore, he and the Federal Secretary of War thought it right as an 
act of revenge and retaliation, to withhold these comforts and 
supplies from our men in their prisons when they had adequate 
means of all kinds to supply the needs of these men. Surely 
comment on this statement is unnecessary. 

After Mr. Lincoln's emancipation proclamation v/ent into effect, 
as we have said, on January 1st, 1863, the Federals enrolled a 
large number of slaves in their armies. This greaUy embarrassed, 
as well as exasperated, the Confederates. We have heretofore stated 
the stand proposed by Mr. Davis, and recommended by him to the 
Confederate Congress, to turn over the officers of these colored 
troops to the State authorities in which any of them might be cap- 
tured, to be tried in the courts of such State for the crime of in- 
citing servile insurrection, and that Congress refused to sustain 
him in this recommendation. The question then arose as to 
exchanging negro prisoners. The Federal authorities contended 
that where slaves were captured by them, or when they deserted 
and came to them and enlisted in their armies, they thereby be- 
came free, and should be placed on the same footing with their 
white soldiers, in respect to exchanges, as well as in all other re- 
spects. The Confederates, on the contrary, contended that what- 
ever might be the effect on the status of the slave by going to the 



130 Official Reports of the 

Federals and enlisting in their armies; yet should they be re- 
captured by the Confederates, that restored them to their former 
status as slaves, and they should then be returned to their mas- 
ters, or put to work by the Confederates, and their masters com- 
pensated for their labor. In those cases where the masters did 
not reside in the Confederacy, or could not be ascertained, such 
Negroes were to be exchanged as other prisoners. 

The letter from General Lee to General Grant, stating the 
Confederate position on this subject, is a masterpiece, whether 
considered from a legal, historical or statesmanlike point of view. 
See Series II., Vol. VII., Serial No. 120, p. 1010. General Grant, 
in his reply, seeing that he could not answer the arguments of 
General Lee, contents himself with saying, on this point: 

"I have nothing to do with the discussion of the slavery ques- 
tion; therefore decline answering the arguments adduced to show 
the right to return to former owners such Negroes as are captured 
from our army.^' Id., p. 1018. 

But to return to General Butler. He says he soon learned that 
the Confederates were anxious to exchange the prisoners held by 
them, and so he proposed to the Secretary of War "the plan of 
so exchanging until we had exhausted all our prisoners held by 
the Eebels, and as we should then have a surplus of some ten 
thousand to hold them as hostages for our colored troops, of 
which the Eebels held only hundreds, and to retaliate on this sur- 
plus such wrongs as the Eebels might perpetrate on our soldiers." 
(See Butler's Book, p. 585.) 

At first Judge Ould refused to treat with General Butler at 
all, but in order to resume the cartel, which he was anxious to 
do, this position was soon abandoned, and so on the 30th of 
March, 1864, he, by appointment, conferred with General Butler 
on the su])ject of resuming the exchange. As the result of this in- 
terview. General Butler wrote the Secretary of War that with 
the exception of the question about the exchange of Negroes, "all 
other points of difference v^^ere substantially agi-eed upon, so that 
the exchange might go on readily and smoothly, man for man and 
officer for officer, of equal rank, and officers for their equivalents 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 131 

in privates, as settled by the cartel." (Butler's Book, p. 590.) 
Judge Ould left General Butler on the 31st of March, with the 
understanding that Butler would confer with his Government 
about the points discussed, and then confer further with him. 

"In the meantime the exchanges of sick and wounded and spe- 
cial exchanges were to go on." 

On the first day of April, 1864, General U. S. Grant appeared 
on the scene, and General Butler says: 

"To him the state of the negotiations as to exchange was com- 
municated, and most emphatic verhal directions -were received from 
the Lieutenant-General not to take any steps hy ivhich another 
able-bodied man should he exchanged until further orders from 
Um." Butler's Book, p. 592. 

And the reason assigned by General Grant for this course was 
that, the exchange of prisoners would so strengthon General Lee's 
army as to greatly prolong the war, and therefore it was better 
that the prisoners then in confinement should remain so, no mat- 
ter what sufferings would be entailed thereby. "I said," says Gen- 
eral Butler, "I doubted whether, if we stopped exchanging man 
for man, simply on the ground that our soldiers were more useful 
to us in Eebel prisons than they would be in our lines, however 
true that might be, or speciously stated to the country, the propo- 
sition could not be sustained against the clamor that would at once 
arise against the administration." * * * Id., p. 594. And he 
adds: 

" These instructions in the then state of negotiations rendered 
any further exchanges impossible and retaliation useless." 

This condition of affairs, for which, as we have seen, General 
Grant was solely responsible, continued, with little change, till 
the latter part of January, 1865. It was during this interval of 
nearly a year that the greatest sufferings and mortality occurred. 
Finally the clamor was so great for a renewal of the cartel that 
General Grant consented, and from that date exchanges continued 
to the end of the war, although when a large number of prisoners 
were sent to General Schofield, at Wilmington, on February 21st, 
1865, he refused to receive them. Vol. VIII., p. 286. 



132 Official Reports of the 

On the 10th of January, 1864, in view of the large numbers 
of prisoners then held on both sides, and the sufferings conse- 
quently engendered thereby, Judge Ould addressed a letter to 
Major (afterwards General) Mulford, proposing to deliver all pris- 
oners held by us for an equivalent held by the Federals. But to 
this letter no reply was ever made. On the 22nd of August he 
wrote making the same offer to General Hitchcock, but received 
no reply to this letter either. And so on the 31st of August, 1864, 
Judge Ould published a statement setting forth in detail the 
efforts made by the Confederate authorities to carry out the cartel 
in good faith, stating how it had been violated from time to time, 
and finally suspended, solely hi/ the had faith and had conduct of 
the Federals. 

On the 1st of October, 1864, General Lee proposed to General 
Grant to renew the cartel, but no agreement could be reached on 
the subject, and so on the 6th of October, 1864, Judge Ould ad- 
dressed a letter to General Mulford and proposed, in view of the 
probabilities of the long confinement of prisoners on both sides, 
"that some measures be adopted for the relief of such as are held 
by either party. To that end, I propose," says he, "that each Gov- 
ernment shall have the privilege of forwarding for the use and 
comfort of such of its prisoners as are held by the other, necessary 
articles of food and clothing." * * * p. 930. 

Whilst this proposition was finally accepted by the Federals, it 
took a whole month to get their consent to it. General Mulford's 
reply is dated November 6th, 1864. As early in that year as Jan- 
uary 24th, Judge Ould had written General Hitchcock, proposing 
that the prisoners on each side be attended by their own surgeons, 
and that these surgeons should "act as Commissaries, with power 
to receive and distribute such contributions of money, food, cloth- 
ing, and medicines as may be forwarded for the relief of prisoners." 
" I further propose," (says he), " that these surgeons be detailed by 
their own Governments, and that they shall have full liberty at 
any and all times, through the agents of exchange, to make re- 
ports, not only of their own acts, but of any matters relating to 
the welfare of prisoners." 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 



133 



J To this very important and humane letter," Judoe Quid savs 
''^o reply was ever made." 1 S. H S Paper 12S Tf/ V^ 
had been accepted by the Federals (atd'nX;,'ll "^ Z 

airer), what snffenngs wonld have been prevented and how many 
lives would have been saved? But, as we now know Gener"^ 
Grant did not wish to keep these men from dyin, in ou; p" 
On the contrary, he preferred that the Confederates should be bur- 

ZJf "T^ '"\ ''"" "''" '^'^"^ ""^^ ^^^^^^^ -i«^ their death 
^ould they die and m this way he would continue to ^'fire the 
Northern heart" against us. On the same principle, and for the 
same reason, he not only refused to agree to let u« purchase medi- 
cine and other necessary supplies for these sick prisoners, but re- 
fused for months to receive from ten to fifteen thousand, which we 
offered to deliver up without receiving any equivalent in return 
But above all these, he did not wish them exchanged, because of 
the recruits which would thereby come to General Lee's army. 

Notwithstanding the fact, as shown by our last report, it was by 
General Grant's orders that General Sheridan devastated the Val- 
ley of Virginia, as he did, yet his considerate treatment of Gen- 
eral Lee and his men at Appomattox and his fidelity to General 
Lee's parole there given, after the war, have caused" us to think 
kindly of him and to place him in a different class from that in 
which we have placed Stanton, Halleck, Sherman, Sheridan, Pope, 
Butler, Hunter, Milroy, and other Federal officers, who took such 
delight in treating us with such wicked and wanton brutality during 
the war. But as has been recently said of him, by a distinguished 
Northern writer, who was an officer in his army, and therefore 
knew him better than we did. General Grant was "of coarse moral 
as well as physical fibre"; and nothing demonstrates this more 
clearly than the cruel and heartless way in which he treated his 
own as well as our prisoners. He was so vindictive and cruel that 
on February 7th, 1865, he refused to make any arrangement with 
Judge Ould whereby our prisoners could receive contributions of 
assistance from friends at the North. (Vol. VIIL, p. 140.) And 
as we have just seen, he preferred that his own men should die 
in our prisons, rather than to relieve them, when we offered to de- 



134 Official Reports of the 

liver them to him without any equivalent in return, because of the 
great mortality at Andersonville^which we were unable to avert, and 
of which he was fully apprised. 

At the expense of being tedious, then, we have thought it right 
to give in much detail the facts in relation to the formation and 
operation of the cartel for the exchange of prisoners, and to show 
clearly from the records, why this cartel was suspended, and who 
was responsible therefor. And we have done so, because this 
conduct was the true cause of substantially oM the sufferings and 
deaths which came to the prisoners on both sides during the war. 
That we have shown that the Federal Government, with Edwin M. 
Stanton, H. W. HallecJc and U. S. Grant as its representatives, is 
solely responsible, we thinh cannot be denied, and that history will 
so attest. 

Mr. Charles A. Dana, the Federal Assistant Secretary of War, 
in an editorial in the New York Sun, commenting on the letter 
of Mr. Davis to Mr. James Lyons, written in reference to the stric- 
tures of Mr. Blaine, referred to in the early part of this report, 
said, as follows: 

"This letter shows clearly, we think, that the Confederate au- 
thorities, and especially Mr. Davis, ought not to be held responsi- 
ble for the terrible privations, sufferings and injuries which our 
men had to endure while they were kept in Confederate military 
prisons. The fact is unquestionable, that while the Confederates 
desired to exchange prisoners, to send our men home, and to get 
back their own. General Grant steadily and strenuously resisted 
such an exchange." * * * 

"' It is hard on our men held in Southern prisons,' said Grant, 
in an official communication, '^not to exchange them; but it is hu- 
mane to those left in the ranks to fight our battles. If we com- 
mence a system of exchanges which liberates all prisoners taken, 
we will have to fight on until the whole South is exterminated. 
If we hold those caught they are no more than dead men.' " * * * 

"This evidence (says Dana) must be taken as conclusive. It 
proves that it was not the Confederate authorities who insisted 
on keeping our prisoners in distress, want and disease, hut the 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 135 

commander of our oivn armies." * * * '-'Moreover (says he) 
there is no evidence whatever, that it was practicahle for tile Con- 
federate authorities to feed our prisoners any better than they 
were fed, or to give them any better care and attention than they 
received. The food was insufficient, the care anct attention were 
insufficient, no doubt, and yet the condition of our prisoners was 
not worse than that of the Confederate soldiers in the field, except 
in so far as the condition of those in prison must of necessity be 
worse than that of men who are free and active outside." 

This is the statement, as v;e have said, of the Federal Assistant 
Secretary of War, during the war, and, of course, he knew whereof 
he wrote. He was the man by whose authority General Miles put 
the shackles upon Mr. Davis, when he was in prison at Fortress 
Monroe, and v,^as, therefore, prejudiced in the highest degree 
against Mr. Davis and the Confederate authorities generally. And 
his statement rtiiist he taJcen as conclusive of this whole question. 

When we add to this the pregnant fact that the report of tlie 
Federal Secretary of War, Mr. Stanton, dated July 19, 186G, 
shows that of the Federal prisoners in Confederate prisons only 
22,576 died; whilst of the Confederate prisoners in Federal pris- 
ons 26,436 died, and the report of the Federal Surgeon General 
Barnes, published after the war, showing that the whole number 
of Federal prisoners captured and confined in Southern prisons 
during the war was, in round numbers, 270,000 while the whole 
number of Confederate prisoners captured and confined in Iforth- 
ern prisons was, in like round nmnbers, 220,000. From these two 
reports it v/ill be seen that whilst there were 50,000 more pris- 
oners in Southern than in ISTorthem prisons, during the war, the 
deaths were four thousand less. The per centum of deaths in 
Southern prisons being under nine, while the per centum of de;aths 
in j^orthern prisons was over twelve. 

We think it useless to prolong this discussion, and feel confi- 
dent that we can safely submit our conduct on this, as on everjr 
other point involved in the war, to the judgment of posterity and 
tlie impartial historian, and can justly apply to the Southern Con- 
federacy the language of Philip Stanhope Wormsley, of Oxford 



136 Official Reports of the 

University, England, in the dedication of his translation of Ho- 
mer's Iliad to General Eobert E. Lee, "the most stainless of earthly 
commanders', and, except in fortune, the greatest." 

"Thy Troy is fallen, thy dear land 
Is marred beneath the spoiler's heel; 
I cannot trust my trembling hand 
To write the things I feel. 

"Ah realm of tombs; but let her bear 
This blazon to the end of time: 
No nation rose so white and fair, 
None fell so pure of crime." 



HISTOEIES NOW USED IN OUR SCHOOLS. 



We have but little to add to what was said in our former re- 
ports concerning the histories now being taught in our schools, 
except to express our sincere regret that the State Board of Edu- 
cation, after first excluding it, reversed its action, and put on the 
list of histories to be used in our public schools, the work entitled 
"Our Country," by Messrs. Cooper, Estill & Lemon. And with 
the profoundest respect for each member of the Board, we think 
they committed an unintentional mistake. 

We understand the Board based its later action on the ground 
that the edition of this work, published in 1901, contained impor- 
tant amendments, as well as omissions, not found in that of 1896, 
which was, in our opinion, so justly criticised and condemned by 
the late Dr. Hunter McGuire and Rev. S. Taylor Martin, D. D., in 
their reports to this Camp in 1899. Wliilst it is true that this 
latest edition has been freed from many of the objections then 
urged against the former edition, and it is apparent that the 
authors have profited by these criticisms, and tried to adapt this 
"new issue" to the sentiments which gave them birth; yet there 
are such fundamental objections to this work still that should, in 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 137 

our opinion, have excluded it from our schools forever. In the 
first place, we call attention to the fact, that the new edition does 
not show on the cover, or elsewhere, that it is a new edition at all. 
It is bound and labeled just as the former was ; the preface in the 
new edition is dated in 1895, and is the same as that in the old; 
so that if the publishers were so disposed, they could easily palm 
off on the unwary teacher or child the old for the new edition. 

But we have other objections to the book of a much more serious 
character. The first is, that the authors are the same in both 
editions, and authors who could state the causes of the war, as 
stated in the first edition at Section 531, and then state them 
(when objected to) as in Section 520 in the new edition, are not, 
in our opinion, such historians as we should allow to write 
history for our children, it matters not if they are Southern 
writers. This smacks too much of the methods said to be pursued 
by the G. A. E. of "making history to order." As Dr. Martin 
wrote of the first edition, so think we of this. He said : 

"The book is a feeble production. The controlling idea is evi- 
dently the production of a history that would be acceptable to both 
North and South." 

To accomplish such a task is (as it should be) an impossihility. 
But we condemn this work more for what it fails to say about the 
causes of the war, than for any inaccuracies we have noticed in 
what it does say on that and other subjects. Its text is on the 
order of those who say, "we thought we were right," rather than 
that "we were right." We did know we were right then, and 
we do know it now; and we are entitled to have this told to our 
children. 

Writers at the North are almost daily saying to the world that 
the Southern States had the right to secede. Even Goldwin Smith, 
the most learned and able, as well as the most prejudiced historian 
against the South, who has written about the war, said in the 
Atlantic Monthly of this year: 

"Few who have looked into the history, can doubt that the 
Union originally was, and was generally taken by the parties to it 
to be, a compact, dissoluble, perhaps most of them would have 



138 Official Reports of the 

said, at pleasure, dissoluble certainly on breach of the articles of 
the Union/' 

And that liberal and cultured statesman and writer, Mr. Charles 
Francis Adams, of Boston, in an address delivered by him in June 
last in Chicago, (whilst as we understand him, not conceding 
the right of secession to exist in 1861), said, quoting from Donn 
Piefs Life of General George H. Thomas, as follows: 

"To-day no impartial student of our constitutional history can 
doubt for a moment, that each State ratified the form of govern- 
ment submitted in the firm belief that at any time it could with- 
draw therefrom," 

With our quondam enemies thus telling the world that we had 
the riglit to do what we tried to do, and only asked to be let alone, 
and when we know that when we did go to war, we only went to 
repel a ruthless invasion of our homes and firesides, our case could 
not be made stronger. And we have the right, therefore, to insist 
that our children shall be told the truth about it, and we should he 
content with nothing less. 

Dr. Jones, in his history, says : 

"The seceding States not only had a perfect right to withdraw 
from the Union, but they had amply sufficient cause for doing so, 
and that the war made upon them by the North was utterly un- 
justifiable, oppressive and cruel, and that the South could honor- 
orably have pursued no other course, than to resist force with 
force, and make her great struggle for constitutional freedom." 

Is there any doubt in the mind of any Southerner that this is 
the truth ? If not, then let it be so told to our children. We suf- 
fered and did and dared enough to entitle us to have this done, 
and that we were unsuccessful makes it the more important that 
it should be done. A successful cause will take care of itself; 
an unsuccessful one must rest only on its inherent merits, and if it 
can't do this, then those who supported it were rebels and traitors. 
V7e feel then that we can't do better than to repeat here what we 
said in our report of 1900, on the importance of the trust com- 
mitted to our hands. We then said : 

"Appomattox was not a judicial forum : it was only a battle- 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 139 

■field, a test of physical force, where the starving remnant of the 
Army of IsTorthern Virginia, "wearied with victory," surrendered 
to "overwhelming numbers and resources." We make no appeal 
from that judgment, on the issue of force. But when we see the 
victors in that contest, meeting year by year, and using the supe- 
rior means at their command, to publish to the world that they 
were right and that we were wrong in that contest, saying that 
we were "rebels" and "traitors," in defending our homes and fire- 
sides against their cruel invasion, that we had no legal right to 
withdraw from the Union, when we only asked to be let alone, and 
that we brought on that war: we say, when these, ?nd other wicked 
and false charges are brought against us from year to year, and 
the attempt is sj-'stematically made to teach our children that 
these things are true, and therefore, that we do not deserve their 
sATiipathy and respect because of our alleged wicked and unjusti- 
fiable course in that war and in bringing it on — then it becomes 
our duty, not only to ourselves and our children, but to the thous- 
ands of brave men and women who gave their lives a "free-will 
offering " in defence of the principles for which we fought, to 
vindicate the justice of our cause, and to do this we have to appeal 
only to the bar of truth and of justice." 

Respectfully submitted, 

George L. Christian, 

Chairman. 



REPORT 

BY 

Hon. Geo. L. Christian, 

Chairman. 



October 28, 1903. 
North Carolina and Virginia in the Civil War. 



REPORT OF OCTOBER 28, 1 



To the Grand Camp of Confederate Veterans of Virginia: 

Your History Committee again returns its thanks to you and 
the public for the flattering and cordial way in which you have re- 
ceived its last report. It will be as gratifying to you as it is to 
the committee to know that we have heard of no attempt to con- 
trovert any statement contained in any report of this committee 
up to this time. It will also be gratifying to you to learn that at 
the late reunion of the United Confederate Veterans, held in New 
Orleans, the several reports of your committee were not only in- 
corporated as a part of the report of the History Committee of 
that great organization, but received its unanimous and unquali- 
fied endorsement. 

REGRETS OF COMMITTEE. 

We had expected in this report to discuss a very different sub- 
ject from that which now claims our attention. Indeed, we deeply 
regret that the matter which demands our attention at this time 
should have to be considered by us at all. But we conceive it to 
be our first duty to our mother State to see that her record in the 
Confederate war is kept true, and not misunderstood or misrepre- 
sented by either friend or foe. We have always deprecated con- 
troversies between the Confederates. We think, as General Early 
once said, there is glory enough attached to the Confederate strug- 
o-le for all of us to have a share, that we should stand together and 
see that the truth of that conflict is preserved; this is all we have 
a right to ash, and we should he content ivith nothing less. 

This being our position, we repeat our sincere regret that some 
recent publications from representatives of our sister vState of 
North Carolina have come to us in such a way, and that these pub- 
lications emanate from such sources, that they demand considera- 
tion and attention at the hands of your committee. We again re- 
peat our sorrow that we feel compelled to notice these matters, 

[143] 



144 Official Reports of the 

and in doing so we shall strive to say nothing which will even tend 
to detract from the fame won by the glorious "Old North State" 
in the Confederate war, except in so far as attempts have been 
made to augment that fame at the expense of Virginia. 

THE PEOPLE OF NORTH CAROLINA. 

We know the people of North Carolina and greatly admire 
their many virtues and noble characteristics. We Imew the sol- 
diers sent by her to the Army of Northern Virginia. We have 
seen their splendid bearing and frightful sacrifices on many a 
field of carnage, and we bear willing testimony to the fact that 
no truer, better, or braver soldiers ever stood on the "bloody front 
of battle." North Carolina is truly a great State, inhabited by 
a noble people, and with a record of which she has a right to be 
proud. We love State pride, and particularly that State pride 
and devotion to principle which has made North Carolina do 
what she could to preserve the names and records of her soldiers 
in the Confederate armies. Every other Southern State should 
follow her example, no matter what it may cost to do so. 

No truer patriots ever lived or died for their country- than those 
who fought in the Confederate armies. These men are as well 
satisfied now as they ever were that their cause was just. They 
enlisted at the command of their several States; they did their 
duty to the best of their ability ; they are, and have a right to be, 
proud of their achievements, and they have a right to expect that 
their States will see to it that their names and the record of their 
deeds are preserved. 

CLAIMS MADE BY NORTH CAROLINA. 

Conceding, as we cheerfully do, the great fame achieved by 
North Carolina in the Confederate war, it seems to us, from read- 
ing the publications to which we have referred, that some of our 
friends from that State have not been either just or generous in 
some of their allusions to her sister States, and have seemed both 
spiteful and boastful in some of their charges, claims, and refer- 
ences to their "next-door neighbor," Virginia. What Virginia 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 145 

may have done to provoke this, w are not advised. If aught, we 
regret it. It is these charges, these claims, and seeming reflec- 
tions on Virginia alone, that we now propose to consider, as we 
feel in duty bound to do. In doing this we shall not imitate the 
course pursued by some of the writers to whom we have referred. 
Some of these have not hesitated to reflect on the people and sol- 
diers from Virginia in the harshest and, in our opinion, most 
unjust manner. We shall not imitate these writers (1) because 
we feel confident they do not, in their criticisms of Virginia and 
her people, reflect the real feelings of Forth Carolinians toward 
Virginia, and (2) because neither the people of Virginia nor 
the soldiers sent by her to the Confederate armies need any de- 
fense at our hands. The presentation of the truth of what Vir- 
ginia did and dared and sufi'ered for the Ctonfederate cause is her 
complete vindication, and it is a part of this task that we now 
filially but cheerfully assume. 

THAT SHE FURNISHED MORE TROOPS. 

First. The first and most serious claim made hy North Caro- 
lina is that she furnished more troops to the Confederacy than 
any other Southern State. 

This claim has been made and published far and wide, and, as 
far as we know, no attempt has been made to refute it. It 
generally assumes the form of a hoast, but is sometimes made the 
basis of a complaint. We saw not long since in a Forth Caro- 
lina paper (the Charlotte Observer of May 17, 1903,) a statement 
from the pen of a distinguished writer of that State, in which he 
complained that partiality had been shown to Virginia, and con- 
sequent injustice done to Forth Carolina, during the war, in the 
appointment of the general officers of the army, especially, he 
said, since Virginia had furnished only about 76,000 troops to 
the Confederacy to Forth Carolina's 136,000, or 60,000 more than 
Virginia. 

PRESIDENT DAVIS. 

So far as the question of partiality is concerned, since President 
9 



146 Official Reports of the 

Davis, who made all these appointments, was not a Virginian, 
there was no reason why he should have been partial to Vir- 
ginians unless their merits warranted it. And, in our opinion, 
no good reason is given by this writer for any such alleged mis- 
conduct on his part. We believe Mr. Davis was not only a true 
patriot but a great and good man, and that it would have been 
almost impossible to have found any one who could or would have 
discharged the delicate and difficult duties of his office more sat- 
isfactorily to all than he did. 

But what concerns us far more is the claim made by this writer 
that Worth Carolina, with a smaller white population than Vir- 
ginia, furnished fifty thousand more troops to the Confederacy. 
This claim necessarily implies that North Carolina was more loyal 
to the Confederate cause than Virginia, or, in other words, dis- 
charged her duty in this, the greatest crisis in the history of these 
States, better than A-'irginia. 

Let us examine the record on this point first, then, and see if 
this claim is sustained by it. 

In Series IV., Vol. III., at page 95, of what are termed "The 
War of the Eebellion Official Kecords,^' will be found a carefully 
prepared official report to the "Bureau of Conscription" of the 
Confederate War Department, giving in much detail the number 
and character of the troops furnished by the States of Virginia, 
North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and ]\Iissis- 
sippi up to January 25, 1864. This report shows that the "total 
number of men sent to the field" by Virginia up to that time was 
(page 102) 153, 876, whilst the total number sent by North Caro- 
lina up to that time was only 88,457, or 65,419 less than Virginia^ 

This report further shows that according to the then last cen- 
sus there were remaining in Virginia, between the ages of eighteen 
and forty-five, 13,248 men to be accounted for as soldiers; and in 
North Carolina, 13,877. So that, if every man of those unac- 
counted for in North Carolina had been subsequently sent to the 
field, and not one of those from Virginia, still, according to this 
report, Virginia would have furnished fifty-two thousand, five 
hundred and forty-three more than North Carolina. 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 147 

At page 99 of this report, in referring to North Carolina, the 
following statement is made: 

"The Adjutant General of the State has estimated that the 
State has put into the service 100,000 men, but his calculations 
contain an apparent error, in which he has accounted for 14,000 
men twice. His estimate should therefore be less than mine." 

We do not quote this for the purpose of intimating that 
Nbrth Carolina may (unintentionally, of course,) still be "count- 
ing twice," in making up the number she now claims, but only 
to show that her own Adjutant General did not then claim that 
Forth Carolina had furnished more than one hundred thousand 
men, whilst Virginia had then sent to the field, as shown by this 
report, one hundred and fifty-three thousand, eight hundred and 
seventy-six, and rather more than double the number with which 
she is credited by the distinguished writer to whom we have just 
referred. 

At page 100 of this same report, in accounting for the troops 
furnished by South Carolina, occurs this item and statement — 
viz. : 

"Without passing through camps 13,953." 

"A large part of this number (13,953) will be found to have 
volunteered in North Carolina regiments, having been drawn into 
that State by the inducements of double bounty, which was at 
one time offered to volunteers." 

These troops from South Carolina are, doubtless, counted by 
North Carolina in the number she now claims, and may, to some 
extent, account for how she furnished 10,000 more soldiers to the 
Confederacy than her voting population, ,as shown in a tlien recent 
election, of which fact she now justly boasts. 

EEPORT CORKECT. 

As showing that the report from which we have quoted is sub- 
stantially correct, the largest number of troops we have seen any- 
where claimed to have been furnished by North Carolina is that 
contained in the report from the present Adjutant General's ofiice, 
and this number is put at about 127,000, and, of course, this in- 



148 Official Reports of the 

eludes the /'total of all men disposed of" from the State — all in 
the field, and all exemptions from whatever caiuee. The report 
from which we have quoted above (page 103) gives North Caro- 
lina 136,623 and to Virginia (counting in the same way) 178,933, 
or 53,316 more than ISTorth Carolina. 

COMPARATIVE NUMBER OF REGIMENTS, ETC. 

Whilst this report gives the number of regiments, battalions, 
and batteries furnished by Virginia, it does not give the number 
of those furnished by Worth Carolina. But we are enabled to 
supply this apparent omission from another source, to be found in 
the same voliune at page 723. As late as October 11, 1864, Gov. 
Vance wi'ote to Gen. Bragg (a native of North Carolina), then 
stationed in Eichmond, asking Bragg to furnish him with the 
number of troops furnished by ISTorth Carolina to the Confederacy, 
and saying he wished this information in order to "know what 
North Carolina had done in comparison with the other States," in 
view of a proposed meeting of the Governors of the South, then 
about to assemble at Augusta, Ga. On this letter of inquiry there 
is an indorsement stating that, whilst the number of troops fur- 
nished by North Carolina could not be given without laborious re- 
search, there was then in the Confederate service from that State 
sixty-seven regiments, five battalions, twelve unattached companies, 
two State regiments doing service for the Confederacy, and nine 
battalions of reserves then organized. The report of January 35, 
1864, above referred to, shows that Virginia had then sent to the 
field sixty-three regiments of infantry, forty battalions of infan- 
try, twenty regiments of cavalry, forty battalions of cavalry, and 
one hundred and twenty-five batteries of artillery (page 96). 

A comparison of these organizations of the two States gives this 
result — ^viz. : That where North Carolina had furnished the Con- 
federacy, in all arms of the service, sixty-nine regiments, Virginia 
had furnished eighty-three; where North Carolina had furnished 
fourteen battalions^ Virginia had furnished eighty; and where 
North Carolina had furnished twelve unattached companies (pre- 
sumably batteries), Virginia had furnished one hundred and 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 149 

twenty-pe batteries; and it is worthy of remark, that the report 
showing the number of these Virginia organizations is dated eight 
months in advance of that showing the number of the North Caro- 
lina organizations. 

COMPARATIVE EXEMPTIONS. 

Second. Another charge made by another distinguished North 
Carolina writer (Capt. W. B. Bond in his pamphlet entitled 
" Picl-ett or Pettigreiv,") is that " citizens of Virginia were filling 
nearly one-half of the positions of honor and trust, civil and mili- 
tary J' in the Confederacy. 

So far as the appointment of the general ofl&cers of the army 
is involved in this charge, we have already said that we believed 
they were made by Mr. Davis solely on the merits of the ap- 
pointees; and we think it will be admitted by all that some of 
these appointments could not have been improved upon, or per- 
haps made at all from any other State. 

As to the charge, so far as it applied to the other military oflB- 
cers, this was made by Gov. Vance during the war, and if any one 
wishes to see a complete refutation of it, they have only to refer 
to the letter from Gen. Lee to the Confederate Secretary of War, 
dated September 9, 1863, Eeb. Eec, Series I., Vol. XXIX., Part 
II., p. 723. 

As to the civil positions of honor and trust of which this writer 
says one-half were filled by Virginians, and that Eichmond thought 
"all should be thus filled." If he means by this to charge that 
Virginia had a larger number of men exempted from military 
duty to fill these places than any other State (as would have 
been reasonable, since she had the largest number in the field 
and was the seat of the capitol, with all the departments of the 
government), then the report, from which we have just quoted, 
shows that in this he is greatly mistaken. This report, at page 
103, shows that the "total exempts" in Virginia at that time were 
twenty-five thousand and sixty-three; whilst those in North Caro- 
lina numbered thirty-eight thousand, on hundred and sixty-six. 
And in the same volume in which this report is to be found, at 



150 Official Reports of the 

page 851, will be found this remarkable exhibit, under the head- 
ing "N'umber of State OflBcers" in each Southern State exempted 
on certificates of their Governors. This last paper shows that 
while the number of these officers exempted in Virginia was one 
thousand, four hundred and twenty-two, the number exempted 
in ISTorth Carolina was fourteen thousand six hundred and sev- 
enty-five, more than ten times as many as in any other Southern 
State. 

EFFECTS OF FIGHTING OF THE " BETHEL REGIlvrENT." 

Third. A third claim made by another distinguished North 
Carolina writer is that one of the effects of the fight made by the 
" Bethel Regiment " at Bethel was the " possibly holding Virginia 
in the Confederacy." (See article by Maj. Edward J. Hale, 
"North Carolina Regiments, '61 to '65," Vol. I., p. 123.) 

The only theory on which we can account for this uncalled-for 
suggestion is, that the writer wished to attribute to this regiment 
the greatest possible achievement the fecundity of his imagination 
could conceive of, and hence this "unkindest cut of all' at our old 
mother. Virginia joined the Confederacy before North Carolina; 
and we will show later on, by the testimony of all the representa- 
tives of all the Southern States, that no State in the Confederacy 
showed more devotion to the cause, and that none was ready to 
make or made greater sacrifices in its behalf. 

NO DESIRE TO MAGNIFY WORK OF VIRGINIA. 

We have no intention or desire to magnify either the services 
rendered by Virginia to the Confederacy or the sufferings and sac- 
rifices of her people for the Confederate cause. Indeed, from 
what we know of these, we think it would be difficult to do this. 
But since some North Carolina writers have laid so much stress 
on the part performed by their State in these directions (a claim 
we have no disposition to contest), it seems to us both pertinent 
and proper to call attention to two things which apply to Vir- 
ginia, but do not apply to North Carolina or to any other South- 
ern State. These are: 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 151 

VIRGINIA A " BATTLE GROUND." 

1. Virginia was a "battle ground" from the leginning to the 
end of the war. No people who have not had this experience can 
form any conception of what it means, and this was literally true 
of Virginia "from her mountains to her seashore." EVery day 
and every hour for four long years the tramp or the camp, the 
bivouac or the battle of loth armies were upon Virginia's soil. 
Six hundred of the two thousand battles fought were fought in 
Virginia, and the fenceless fields, the houseless chimneys, the 
charred ruins and the myriad graves left all over Virginia at the 
close of the war marked and measured the extent to which her 
material resources had contributed to that struggle, and the devo- 
tion of her people to the Confederate cause. These things also 
showed in the utter desolation produced by the war, and in the 
difficulties and disadvantages the State and her people have labored 
under ever since. 

VIRGINIA DISMEMBERED. 

2. Virginia was the onhj Southern State dismembered by the 
war. One-third of her territory (the richest in many respects) 
and one-third of her people were actually torn from her by the 
mailed hand of war not only without her consent but contrary to 
an express provision of the Federal Constitution. The true his- 
tory of this " political rape," as it was termed by Gen. Wise, is one 
of the blackest political crimes in the annals of history. 

OTHmi CLAIMS MADE BY NORTH CAROLINA. 

Fourth. The fourth claim or claims {and the last to which we 
can refer) preferred by North Carolina are set forth in these very 
striking terms — viz. : That she was 

First at Bethel; Farthest to the Front at Gettysburg and 
Ghichamauga; Last at Appomattox." 

This legend in this form is inscribed on the cover of each of the 
five volumes published by the State, entitled "North Carolina 
Eegiments, 1861-65," to be thus perpetuated throughout all time. 



152 Official Reports of the 

Of course, such claims, thus asserted, and conveying to the 
world what these necessarily do, should be above and beyond all 
criticism or cavil. Let us see if these will stand this test. Before 
instituting this inquiry, let us first ask, respectfully, why these 
claims are made at all. The learned editor of the volumes to 
which we have just referred disclaims that they are intended as a 
boast. But we again respectfully ask: Can they mean anything 
else than that North Carolina means by them to proclaim the fact 
that the troops furnished by her were better, and therefore did bet- 
ter at the important points named, than those from any other 
State? 

It is worthy of note, too, that our friends are getting more aggres- 
sive in their claiming with the passing of time. The first form 
assumed by this legend, and inscribed on the Confederate monu- 
ment at Ealeigh, was only : 

"First at Bethel; Last at Appomattox/' 

We next hear of it as inscribed on her memorial room in Eich- 
mond as : 

"First at Bethel; Farthest to the Front at Gettysburg ; 
Last at Appomattox." 

And now Chickamauga's "bloody front" is also included. One 
of her writers has already claimed that "Chancellorsville" was a 
' North Carolina fight," and that Gettysburg ought to be so denomi- 
nated, too; and so our friends go on claiming from step to step just 
as during the war. 

" From rank to rank their volleyed thunders flew." 

As before stated, we have no intention or desire to detract one 
iota from the fame of North Carolina, except where attempts have 
been made to augment that fame at the expense of Virginia. Keep- 
ing this purpose steadily before us, we now propose to inquire 
whether or not some of the claims set up by North Carolina in this 



History Committee, Grand Camp, G. V. 153 

legend do injustice to Virginia. And first as to the claim that she 
was " first at Bethel." 

" FIRST AT BETHEL." 

In Volume IV. of the " Confederate Military History," at page 
19, will be found a carefully prepared account of the battle at 
Bethel, written by D. H. Hill, Jr., son of the intrepid soldier of 
that name who commanded the First North Carolina in that fight, 
and, therefore, one with every natural incentive to say all that 
could be said truthfully, both on behalf of his father and his regi- 
ment. He says: " About nine o'clock in the morning of the 10th 
(June) the Federals appeared on the field in front of the Southern 
works, and Greble's battery took position. A shot from a Parrott 
gun in the Confederate loorls ushered in the great Civil War on the 
land." 

This first shot was fired from the battery of the Eichmond (Va.) 
Howitzers, which had already fired the "first shot" fired on Vir- 
ginia's soil nearly a month before at Gloucester Point. We are not 
claiming, however, any special credit for having fired this conceded 
fvrst shot, the firing of which was only fortuitous. But Virginia 
was at Bethel, along with North Carolina, not only represented by 
the commanding general, himself a Virginian, but by all three arms 
of the service (infantry, artillery, and cavalry), and these troops 
are mentioned by the commanding general, along with those from 
North Carolina, not only in his report of the battle but also, and in 
complimentary terms, in the report of Gen. (then Col.) D. H. Hill, 
commanding the only North Carolina troops there. Was not Vir- 
ginia at Bethel, then, standing side by side with North Carolina? 
Did she not do her duty there as well ? If she did, why the invidi- 
ous claim that North Carolina was first at Bethel? Is this just to 
Virginia ? We think not, in all kindness and courtesy. Bethel is 
in Virginia, and to claim that the troops of any other State were 
more prompt in defending her soil than those from Virginia neces- 
sarily reflects on Virginia. 



154 Official Reports of the 

FAETHEST AT GETTYSBURG. 

As TO Gettysburg : We were there, and by reason of our position 
on the field, we saw that battle as we never saw any other. We 
saw the charges of Pickett's, Pettigrew's, and Pender's Divisions. 
We saw some of Pickett's men go over the enemy's works and into 
their lines. We did not think then, and do not think now, that 
Pettigrew's and Pender's went so far, and we know this was the 
consensus of opinion of those around us at the time. 

But be this as it may, the world's verdict is that Pickett's men 
went as far as men could go and did all that men could do. Mr. 
Charles Francis Adams has recently written of them, that the 
vaunted charge of Napoleon's "Old Guard" at Waterloo did not 
compare with that of Pickett's men, and was " as boys' play beside 
it." 

Gen. John B. Gordon, of Georgia, perhaps the most distinguished 
Confederate officer now living, who was at Gettysburg, has very 
recently written that the " point where Pickett's Virginians, under 
Kemper, Garnett, and Armistead, in their immortal charge swept 
over the rock wall, has been appropriately designated by the govern- 
ment as the high-water mark of the rehellion." And we believe this 
will be the verdict of history for all time. 

Since there has been so much discussion on this point, and some 
of it, we think, both unfortunate and intemperate, we propose to 
consider this claim calmly and dispassionately, not from what we 
saw, or what we and others may have thought at the time of the 
battle, or may think now, but from the official reports of the com- 
manding officers^ written only a few days after the battle. These 
reports are the best evidence, and must and will be accepted as 
conclusive of what then occurred. We have read so much of all of 
these reports. Confederate and Federal, as we could find published 
and as would throw light on this question, and we propose to make 
such extracts from the most important of these as we think should 
settle this controversy for all time. It is proper to say in this 
connection that the statements contained in these reports were 
accepted as true at the time, and remained so for thirty years. 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 155 

History, both at the North and at the South, has been based on 
them, and it seems to us remarkable that this controversy should 
have arisen so long after the happening of the events as thus estab- 
lished. But the controversy has now arisen, and hence the necessity 
for appealing to the record to settle it. The question is, Which 
troops went "farthest to the front" — i. e., penetrated the enemy's 
works farthest — on the 3d day of July, 1863, at Gettysburg in the 
famous charge of that day — Pickett's, Pettigrew's, or Pender's? 
We say Pickett's ; North Carolinians say Pettigrew's. 

In order to understand the situation and the quotations we shall 
make from the reports, it is necessary to state what forces consti- 
tuted the "charging column" and tlie dispositions and allignments 
of these forces. This column was composed of Pickett's A^irginia 
Division on the rigid and a part of Heth's Division (commanded 
by Pettigrew) on the left, with a part of Anderson's Division to 
guard the left flank of Pettigrew, and Wilcox's and Perry's Brigades 
of Anderson's Division the right flank of Pickett. Pickett's Divi- 
sion was called the "' directing division," and was composed of Kem- 
per's, Garnett's, and Armistead's Brigades— Kemper's on the right, 
Garnett's on the left, supported by Armistead in the rear and center. 
Pettigrew's Division was composed of Archer's, Pettigrew's, Davis's, 
and Brockenbrough's Brigades, supported by Scales's and Lane's 
Brigades of Pender's Division, then commanded by Gen. Trimble ; 
Scales's Brigade (commanded by Col. Lowrance) being in rear of 
Archer's (commanded by Col. Pry), and Lane's being on the left 
of Scales, supporting Pettigrew's Brigade (then commanded by 
Col. Marshall). All of the reports refer to the magnificent way in 
which all of these troops advanced to the charge, and we shall insti- 
tute no comparison between them ; they were all gallant and glorious 
Confederate soldiers, and, we believe, the "best the world ever 
saw," as they have been pronounced by the present Chief Magistrate 

of this country. 

We come now to the reports. We quote first from that of Gen. 
Lee, written after he had received those of his subordinates, and 
based upon what was contained in them, as well as what he saw on 
the field; and his position on the field was such that he could see 



156 Official Reports of the 

the whole movement with distinctness. He says this in his official 
report : 

"Gen. Longstreet ordered forward the column of attack, consist- 
ing of Pickett^s and Heth's Divisions in two lines, Pickett on the 
right. Wilcox's Brigade marched in rear of Pickett's right to 
guard that flank, and Heth's (commanded by Pettigrew) was sup- 
ported by Lane's and Scales's Brigades under Gen. Trimble. The 
troops moved steadily on under a heavy fire of musketry and artil- 
lery, the main attack being directed against the enemy's left center. 
His batteries opened as soon as they appeared. Our own, having 
nearly exhausted their ammunition in the protracted cannonade 
that preceded the advance of the infantry, were unable to reply or 
render the necessary support to the attacking party. Owing to this 
fact, which was unknown to me when the assault took place, the 
enemy was enabled to throw a strong force of infantry against our 
left, already wavering [italics ours] under a concentrated fire of 
artillery from the ridge in front and from Cemetery Hill on the left. 
It (the left) finally gave way, and the right, after penetrating the 
enemy's lines, entering his advance worlcs, and capturing some of 
his artillery, was attacked simultaneously in front and on both 
flanks and driven back with heavy loss." 

We have only to remember that Pettigrew's Division was on the 
left and Pickett's on the right to understand clearly what Gen. Lee 
here says. 

We next quote from Gen. Longstreet's report, who was standing 
not very far from Lee and saw the whole movement. He says : 

"The advance was made in very handsome style, all the troops 
keeping their lines accurately and taking the fire of the batteries 
with coolness and deliberation. About halfway between our posi- 
tion and that of the enemy a ravine partially sheltered our troops 
from the enemy's fire, where a short halt was made for rest. The 
advance was resumed after a moment's pause, all still in good order. 
The enemy's batteries soon opened on our lines with canister, and 
the left seemed to stagger under it, but the advance was resumed 
and with the same degree of steadiness. Pickett's troops did not 
appear to be checked by the batteries, and only halted to deliver a 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 157 

fire when close under musket range. Maj. Gen. Anderson's Divi- 
sion was ordered forward to support and assist the wavering 
columns of Pettigrew and Trimhle. PlcTcett's troops, after de- 
livering fire, advanced to the charge, and entered the enemy's 
lines, capturing some of his batteries and gaining his works. 
About the same moment, the troops that had before hesitated 
brohe their ranks and fell bach in great disorder [italics ours], 
many more falling under the enemy's fire in retiring than while 
they were attacking. This gave the enemy time to throw his en- 
tire force upon Piclett [italics ours], with a strong prospect of 
being able to break up his lines or destroy him before Anderson's 
Division could reach him, which would in its turn have greatly 
exposed Anderson. He was, therefore, ordered to halt. In a few 
moments the enemy, marching against both flanks and the front 
of Pickett's Division, overpowered and drove it back, capturing 
about half of those of it who were not killed or wounded." 

Surely comment here is unnecessary, and no one who has read 
Longstreet's book will accuse him of partiality to Virginians. 

We next quote from the report of that gallant soldier and 
splendid gentleman, Gen. James H. Lane, who was at first in 
command of Pender's Division, but having been relieved of 
that by Gen. Trimble, then commanded his own Korth Carolina 
Brigade. He says: 

" Gen. Longstreet ordered me to form in the rear of the right 
of Heth's Division, commanded by Gen. Pettigrew. Soon after I 
had executed this order, putting Lowranee (commanding Scales's 
Brigade) on the right, I was relieved of the command of the divi- 
sion by Gen. Trimble, who acted under the same orders that I re- 
ceived. Heth's Division was much larger than Lowrance's Brigade 
and my own, which were its only support, and there was conse- 
quently no second line in rear of its left. Now in command of 
my own brigade, I moved forward to the support of Pettigrew's 
right, through the woods in which our batteries were planted, and 
through an open field about a mile in full view of the enemy's 
fortified position and under a murderous artillery and infantry 



158 Official Reports of the 

fire. As soon as Pettigrew's command gave hack [italics ours] 
Lowrance's Brigade and my own, without ever having halted, 
took position on the left of the troops, which were still contest- 
i/ng the ground with the enemy [italics ours]. My command 
never moved forward more handsomely. The men reserved their 
fire, in accordance with orders, until within good range of the 
enemy, and then opened with telling effect, repeatedly driving 
the cannoneers from their pieces, completely silencing the guns 
in our immediate front, and breaking the line of infantry which 
was formed on the crest of the hill. We advanced to within a 
feiv yards of the stone wall [italics ours], exposed all the while to 
a raking artillery fire from the right. My left was here very 
much exposed, and a column of the enemy's infantry was thrown 
forward from that direction, which enfiladed my whole line. 
This forced me to withdraw my brigade, the troops on my right 
having already done so." 

The troops directly on Lane's right were those of Lowrance. 
But if he refers to Pickett's too, then he does not pretend that his 
own men entered the enemy's works, as Pickett's did, which, as 
we shall see, is the real point at issue. 

Scarcely a more striking illustration of the frailty of human 
memory or the unsatisfactory nature of the post-helium state- 
ments relied on entirely, it would seem, by the advocates of Forth 
Carolina's claim, can be found than by contrasting Gen. Lane's 
report with what is said by Capt. Louis G. Young (now of Savan- 
nah, Ga., a gallant and gifted Confederate who was in the charge as 
an aide on Gen. Pettigrew's staff). In an address recently deliv- 
ered by him on Gettysburg, a copy of which he has kindly sent us 
Capt. Young says: 

" Gen. Trimble and his brigade (division) were not, and had 
not been, in supporting distance. They also must have been de- 
layed, as was Davis's Brigade, in the woods on Seminary Eidge. 
Be this as it may, they were too late to give any assistance to the 
assaulting column. When I delivered my message I knew it was 
too late, and I recall my sad reflection, 'What a pity that these 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 159 

brave men should be sacrificed!' Already had the remnant of 
Pickett's and Heth's Divisions broken. They hroJce simulta- 
neously. They had together struck the stone fence, driven back 
the enemy posted behind it, looked down on the multitude beyond, 
and, in the words of Gen, McLaws, who was watching the attack, 
'rebounded like an India rubber ball.' The lodgment effected 
was only for an instant. Not twenty minutes elapsed, as claimed 
by some, before the handful of braves was driven back by over- 
whelming numbers. Then Trimble's command should have been 
ordered to the rear. It continued its useless advance alone, only 
to return before it had gone as far as we had." 

It will be seen that this statement is (unintentionally, we know) 
not only at variance with the report of Gen. Lane, but also with 
those of Gens. Lee, and Longstreet, both of whom confirm Gen. 
Lane in the statement that Pettigrew's men gave way before those 
of Pickett did. 

But let us quote again from the official reports, and this time 
from that of Col. Lo^vrance, who, it will be remembered, com- 
manded Scales's North Carolina Brigade, which was supporting 
Pettigrew. He says : 

" We advanced upon the enemy's line, which was in full view at 
a distance of a mile. Now their whole line of artillery, which was 
on an eminence in front strongly fortified and supported by in- 
fantry, was playing upon us." . . . "All went forward with a cool 
and steady step ; but ere we had advanced over two-thirds of the 
way troops from the front came tearing through our ranks [italics 
ours], which caused many of our men to break, but with the remain- 
ing few we went forward until the right of the brigade touched 
the enemy s line of hrcastworks, as we marched in rather an oblique 
line. Now the pieces in our front were silenced. Here many were 
shot down, being then exposed to a heavy fire of grape and musketry 
upon our right flank. Now all, apparently, had forsaken us." 

Now the troops in front of Lowrance were those of Pettigrew, 
and he says they gave way a third of a mile before they got to the 
enemy's works. But be this at it may, he nowhere says that any 
of Ms men entered the enemy's works; and none of the reports that 



160 Official Reports of the 

we have seen say that any North Carolina troops did this, which, 
as we have seen, is the real point at issue. We have already shown, 
and will do so more conclusively later, that Pickett's men or some 
of them, certainly did this. The report of Maj. Joseph A. Engle- 
hard, assistant adjutant general of Pender's Division, then com- 
manded by Trimble, is substantially to the same effect as those of 
Gen, Lane and Col. Lowrance, and for that reason we do not quote 
what he says. That of Col. Shepard, of Archer's Brigade, after 
describing the charge, and saying our lines, both right and left, 
gave way, says : 

"Archer's Brigade remained at the works fighting as long as 
any other troops, either on their right or left, so far as I could ob- 
serve. Every flag in the brigade, excepting one, was captured at 
or within the works of the enemy." (Italics ours.) 

This is the only official statement we have found which claimed 
that any other troops than those of Pickett entered the enemy's 
works. But since Archer's Brigade, which, Gen. Heth says, were 
the "heroes of Chancellorsville," was composed entirely of Ten- 
nesseeans and Alabamians, we hardly think our ISForth Carolina 
friends can mean their claim to be mistaken for what the men of 
this brigade did. 

The report of Maj. J. Jones, of the Twenty-sixth ISTorth Caro- 
lina, who commanded Pettigrew's Brigade after Col. Marshall 
was wounded, says: 

"When within about 250 or 300 yards of the stone wall, be- 
hind which the enemy was posted, we were met with a perfect 
hailstorm of lead from their small arms. The brigade dashed on, 
and many had reached the wall, when we received a deadly volley 
from the left. The whole line on the left had given way, and we 
were being rapidly flanked. With our thinned ranks and in such 
a position it would have been folly to stand, and against such 
odds. We, therefore, fell back to our original position in rear of 
the batteries." 

It will be seen that this officer does not claim that any of his 
men entered the works or that the troops on his right (Pickett's 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 161 

and Archer's) gave way first; but those on his left, the other two 
brigades of Pettigrew's Division. The reports of Gen'ls. A. P. 
Kill, Heth, and Davis throw no light on the question, and we 
have been unable to find any from Gen. Pickett or from any officer 
of his division, except that of Maj. Charles S. Peyton, of Garnett's 
Brigade, which would throw any further light on this question. 
Maj. Peyton says this : 

"Our line, much shattered, still kept up the advance until 
within about twenty paces of the wall, when for a moment it re- 
coiled under the terrific fire that poured into our ranks both from 
their batteries and from their sheltered infantry. At this 
moment Gen. Kemper came up on the right and Gen. Armi stead 
in rear, Mdien the three lines, joining in concert, rushed forward 
with unyielding determination and an apparent spirit of laudable 
rivalr}^ to plant the Southern banner on the walls of the enemy. 
His strongest and last line was instantly gained; the Confederate 
battle flag waved over his defenses, and the fighting over the wall 
became hand-to-hand and of the most desperate character; but, 
more than half having already fallen, our line was found too weak 
to rout the enemy. We hoped for a support on the left (which 
had started simultaneously with ourselves), hut hoped in vain. 
[Italics ours.] Yet a small remnant remained in desperate 
struggle, receiving a fire in front, on the right, and on the left, 
many even climbing over the wall and fighting the enemy in his 
own trenches until entirely surrounded; and those who were not 
killed or wounded were captured, with the exception of about 300 
who came off slowly, but greatly scattered, the identity of every 
regiment being entirely lost and every regimental commander 
killed or wounded." 

Col. Walter H. Taylor, of Gen. Lee's staff, who was on the field 
standing by Gen. Lee and saw the movement, says : 

" It is needless to say a word here of the heroic conduct of 

Pickett's Division. That charge has already passed into history 

as 'one of the world's great deeds of arms.' Wliile doubtless 

many brave men of other commands reached the crest of the 

10 



162 Official Reports of the 

height, this was the only organized body which entered the works 
of the enemy." 

Gen. Long, who was also on Gen. Lee's staff, after describing 
the order in which the charge was made, says : 

"But the tempest of fire which burst upon the devoted column 
quickly reduced its strength. The troops of Heth's Division 
(Pettigrew's), decimated by the storm of deadly hail which tore 
through their ranks, faltered and fell back in disorder before the 
withering volleys of the Federal musketry. This compelled Pen- 
der's (Trimble's) Division, which had marched out to support 
the movement, to fall back, while Wilcox, on perceiving that the 
attack had grown hopeless, failed to advance, leaving Pickett's 
men to continue the charge alone. The other supports. Hood's 
and McLaw's Divisions, which had been expected to advance in 
support of the charging column, did not move, and were too re- 
mote to offer any assistance. The consequence was that Pickett 
was left entirely unsupported. 

" Yet the gallant Virginians marched steadily forward through 
the storm of shot and shell that burst upon their devoted ranks 
with a gallantry that has never been surpassed. As they ap- 
proached the ridge their lines were torn by incessant volleys of 
musketry as by a deadly hail. Yet, with unfaltering courage, 
the brave fellows broke into the double-quick, and with an irre- 
sistible charge burst into the Federal lines and drove ever}i;hing 
before them toward the crest of Cemetery Hill, leaping the breast- 
works and planting their standards on the captured guns with 
shouts of victory." 

Whilst nearly all of the Federal reports which refer to this 
charge do so in almost as enthusiastic terms as the Confederate, 
yet only two or three of them designate by name the troops who 
were in advance and who actually entered their works. These 
few, however, leave no doubt on this point. Gen. Hancock says: 

" When the enem3'-'s line had nearly reached the stone wall, led 
ly Gen. Armistead" [italics ours], etc. 

Gen. Webb, who commanded the brigade immediately in front 
of Pickett, says: 



History Committee, Grand Gamp, C. V. 163 

" The enemy advanced steadily to the fence, driving out a por- 
tion of the Seventy-first Pennsylvania Volunteers. Gen. Armis- 
tead passed over the fence ivitli probably over a hundred of his 
command [italics ours] and with several battle flags/' etc. 

Gen. Henry J. Hunt, who commanded the Federal artillery, 



says : 



The enemy advanced magnificently, unshaken by the shot and 
shell which tore through his ranks from the front and from our 
left. . . . When our canister fire and musketry were opened upon 
them it occasioned disorder, but still they advanced gallantly until 
they reached the stone wall, behind which our troops lay." Here 
ensued a desperate conflict, the enemy succeeding in passing the 
wall and entering our lines [italics ours], causing great destruc- 
tion of life, especially among the batteries." 

The other reports show what " enemy " is here meant. It will 
thus be seen that every one of the official reports, both Federal 
and Confederate (with the exception of that of Col. Shepard, of 
Archer's Brigade, not composed of Carolinians), which refer to 
the troops who entered the enemy's works, point unmistahdbly to 
those of Pickett's Virginians. This is the positive testimony on 
this point, and the negative is almost as strong; which is that 
none of the official reports from the officers commanding the 
North Carolina troops male any such claim for their troops — a 
claim that would certainly have been made if the facts had war- 
ranted it. Not only is this true, but Gen. Lane, in his letter pub- 
lished long after the war in the ''Southern Historical Society 
papers," whilst complaining (and, perhaps, justly) of the little 
credit given the North Carolina troops for their conduct in this 
charge, makes no such claim for them. Indeed, Capt. S. A. Ashe, 
of North Carolina, late adjutant general of Pender's Division, 
who was in the charge, in his address published in Volume V. of 
" North Carolina Eegiments, '61-'65," whilst claiming at the close 
that North Carolina troops "advanced the farthest and remained 
the longest," says at page 152 : 

" Some of Pettigrew's North Carolinians advanced to the wall 



164 Official Reports of the 

[italics ours], doing all that splendid valor and heroic endurance 
could do to dislodge the enemy, hut their heroism was in vain." 

And only a very few of the many post-bellum witnesses quoted 
from by Capt. Ashe claim any more than the official reports show. 
As to the value of these post-bellum statements, as compared with 
the " official reports " prepared at the time, we cannot do better 
than to quote from what Gen. Lane said in the article in the 
Southern Historical Society papers before referred to. He says, 
speaking of his own report of the battle of Gettysburg: 

" I am sure the public will consider this official paper, written 
abou.t a month after the battle, a more valuable historical docu- 
ment than the many recent articles written from memory, which 
is at all times treacherous, and as every Confederate soldier knows, 
particularly so as regards the incidents, etc., of our heroic strug- 
gle for independence." 

He then goes on to give instances of the unreliability of these 
writings from memory. 

"We have heretofore said we could find no official report of this 
battle from Gen. Pickett. The following letter explains why this 
report was not published. It will be found in Series 1, Volume 
XXVII., Part III., page 1075, " Reb. Rec," and is as follows : 

" Geist. George E. Pickett, Commanding, etc. 

" General: — You and your men have crowned yourselves with 
glory; but we have the enemy to fight, and must carefully, at this 
critical moment, guard against dissensions which the reflections 
in your report would create. I will, therefore, suggest that you 
destroy both copy and original, substituting one confined to 
casualties merely. I hope all will yet be well. 

" I am, with respect, your obedient servant, 

" R, E. Lee, General." 

We make no comment on this letter, and when read in the light 
of the official reports, it would seem to need none. 

We do not intend to be misunderstood. We have not done so 
and do not intend to reflect in any way on any of the North Caro- 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 165 

lina troops. On the contrary, we think, considering the fact that 
they were engaged and sustained heavy losses in the first day's 
battle, and were thus deprived of many of their brigade, regi- 
mental, and company officers they behaved with signal gallantry. 
But our contention and our only point is: that the present claim 
set up by North Carolina that her troops were '•' farthest to the 
front " at Gettysburg is not sustained hy the record. 

We have recently learned that our friends from North Carolina 
do not now claim that their men entered the enemy's works, as 
some of Pickett's did. Yet they say that inasmuch as at the point 
where Pickett's men struck these works they were farther ad- 
vanced to the front than where Pettigrew's men struck them, and 
as " Capt. Satterfield and other North Carolinians of the Fifty- 
fifth North Carolina fell within nine yards of that wall. This 
settles (it) that the men from this State (North Carolina) fairly 
earned the title " Farthest at Gettysburg." (Note by the editor, 
"North Carolina Eegiments, '61-'65," Vol. V., p. 101.) 

We remark in the first place that the Fifty-fifth North Caro- 
lina was in Davis's Brigade, the farthest brigade to the left (save 
one) in the " charging column," and being without any support, 
as explained by Gen. Lane, we thought it was conceded that this 
brigade and Brockenbrough's ivere the first troops to give way. 

But surely our friends are not basing their claim on any such 
narrow and technical ground as is here intimated, and as surely 
this is not the meaning they intended to convey by this claim. 
We might as well claim that the picket on the flank of Meade's 
army or captured within his lines was ''farthest to the front." 
Every soldier knows that the "front" of an army is wherever its 
line of battle is {whether that line is zigzag or straight), and the 
opposing troops which penetrate that line are farther to the front 
than those tvhich do not. 

We have shown, we think, conclusively that the Virginians 
under PicTcett did penetrate the enemy's line on the 3rd of July, 
'63, in the famous charge at Gettysburg, and that the North Caro- 
linians, under Pettigrew and Trimble, did not. 



166 Official Reports of the 

Another ground on which, we understand, North Carolina bases 
this claim is that her losses in this battle were greater than those 
of Pickett. All the statistics of losses we have seen of the battle 
of Gettysburg include those in the different commands in all three 
days combined. Since, therefore, Pettigrew's and Trimble's men 
were engaged in the battles of the first day, as well as those of the 
third, and as Pickett's were only engaged on the third day, of 
course the losses of the first two divisions in the two days' battles 
were greater than those of the last named in the on& day's battle. 

If our friends from North Carolina would adopt the language 
of her gallant son Capt. Ashe, from whom we have already quoted, 
and say of Gettysburg: 

" It was, indeed, a field of honor as well as a field of blood, and 
the sister States of Virginia and North Carolina have equal cause 
to weave chaplets of laurel and cypress there," no one in Virginia 
would have just cause of complaint and certainly none would ever 
have come from this committee on this point. But when her claim 
is set forth in the invidious (and, we think, unjust) form it is, we 
think it not only our right hut our duty to appeal to the record, and 
io set Virginia right from that record, and thi^ is all ive have tried 
to do. 

AS TO CHICKAMAUGA. 

As TO Chickamauga : We have already protracted this report 
too far to warrant us in investigating the ground on which this 
claim is based by North Carolina. Virginia was at Chickamauga, 
too, along with North Carolina. We have always understood that 
these Virginia troops did their duty on this field as well as those 
from any other State. This is all we claim, and all that was 
claimed for North Carolina until very recently. We can only re- 
mark as to this belated claim that we have read the full and de- 
tailed report of this great battle, written by the commanding 
general, a native of North Carolina, and in it he nowhere refers 
to any specially meritorious services rendered by the few North 
Carolina troops there. 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. V. 167 

AS TO APPOMATTOX. 

As TO Appomattox: The writer had been permanently dis- 
abled by wounds before Appomattox^ and, therefore, cannot speak 
personally of what occurred there, and there are no official reports 
to appeal to. From what we have heard of the surroundings 
there — the scattered condition of the different commands, the de- 
sultory firing, and the confusion incident to that event — we 
should think it difficult, if not impossible, to prove with any de- 
gree of certainty what troops were really entitled to the honor 
claimed there by North Carolina. 

We do hnoiv, however, that this honor is claimed hy troops 
from several of the Southern States; and we have heard it asserted 
with great plausibility that the last fighting was done by troops 
from Virginia. We cannot prolong this report to discuss the 
merits of these several claims, a discussion which would, in our 
opinion, be both fruitless and unsatisfactory. 

ENOUGH GLORY FOR ALL TO HAVE A SHARE. 

In the Army of Northern Virginia nearly every Southern State 
was represented. The Confederate Secretary of War says of that 
army in his report of November 3, 1864, that it was one "in 
which every virtue of an army and the genius of consummate 
generalship had been displayed." And this, we believe, is the 
world's verdict. Is not this glory enough to give us all a share? 
Let us then not be envious and jealous of each other where all did 
their part so well. 

Virginia's claims. 

Virginia makes no boast of the part borne by her in that, the 
greatest crisis of her history. She only claims that she d,d 
her duty to the lest of her abUUy. She has, therefore, no apo b- 
gies to make either for what she did or may have failed to do. 
It is true that she was somewhat reluctant to join the Con- 
federacy, not because she had any doubt of the right of secession 
or of the justice of the Confederate cause, but only because of her 



168 Official Reports of the 

devotion to the Union of our fathers which she had done so much 
to form and to maintain from its foundation. But when she did 
cast her lot with her Southern sisters, she bore her part with a 
courage and devotion never surpassed; and the record shows this 
in no uncertain ivay. In the address issued and signed by every 
member of the Confederate Congress in February, 1864, not writ- 
ten by a Virginian, she is thus referred to: 

" In Virginia the model of all that illustrates human heroism 
and self-denying patriotism, although the tempest of desolation 
has swept over her fair domain, no sign of repentance for her 
separation from the ISTorth can be found. Her old homesteads 
dismantled; her ancestral relics destroyed; her people impover- 
ished; her territory made the battle ground for the rude shocks 
of contending hosts, and then divided with hireling parasites, 
mockingly claiming jurisdiction and authority, the Old Dominion 
still stands with proud crest and defiant mien ready to trample 
beneath her heel every usurper and tyrant, and to illustrate afresh 
her Sic Semper Tyrannis, the proudest motto that ever blazed on 
a nation's shield or a warrior's arms." 

On such testimony as this Virginia can safely rest her title to 
share equally with her Southern sisters in the " wealth of glory " 
produced by the war, and this equality is all she asks or would 
have. She disdains to pluck one laurel from a sister's brow. 

SCHOOL BOOKS. 

We have but little to add, since our last report, about the books 
used in our schools, as there has been no change in these so far 
as we know. We have received from the publishers, the American 
Book Company, a copy of the " School History of the United 
States," by Philip A. Bruce, Esq. This work is well-written, 
accurate in its statements, as far as we are capable of judging, 
well gotten up by the publishers, and is a very good school history. 
Mr. Bruce is a Virginian, and his book is therefore written from 
a Southern point of view. But we think he fails to state the 
South's position, in reference to the late war, as strongly as it can 



History Committee, Grand Camp, C. Y. 169 

or should be stated to our children— e. g., at Section 418, he says, 
" The Southern people maintained that the Constitution was sim- 
ply a compact or agreement between sovereign and independent 
States," etc.^ without saying whether they were right or wrong in 
so maintaining. Again, at Section 419, he says, "The South 
thought," etc. We think we know what the opinions of the author 
are on these important questions, and that our children should 
have the benefit of these opinions, wherever they are based on such 
well-ascertained facts as are here referred to. 

" STEPPING-STONES TO LITERATURE." 

The volumes with this title have been brought to our attention 
by Capt. Carter E. Bishop, of Petersburg, a member of the com- 
mittee ; and at our request he has prepared the following, it would 
seem, well-merited criticism, which we respectfully commend to 
the serious consideration of the Board of Education of the State. 

Capt. Bishop's paper is as follows: 

" This committee has hitherto confined its attention entirely to 
matters of history proper; but the lamented Dr. Hunter McGuire, 
in outlining our work, included among the subjects of our criti- 
cism such text-books of our schools as failed to do justice to the 
South. 

" We have recently examined, critically, the series of readers in 
most common use, and find them far from what they should be. 
An intelligent child soon learns that authors may dogmatize in 
the statement of facts about which there may be a difference of 
opinion. This puts him on his guard, and he accepts the teach- 
ings in his history as truths subject to such future corrections as 
may be justified by a wider knowledge of the matter. 

"But the most ineradicable opinions are those formed by in- 
ference, without assertions or contradiction, during the formative 
period of a child's mind. The error thus implanted is never sus- 
pected till it is unalteral)ly fixed. There are poisons whose only 
m.anifestation is the inexplicable death of the victim. An anti- 
dote would have saved him, but its need was not indicated till 
deatli niade it useless. 



170 Official Reports of the 

" Did the South, during the last century and a half, have no 
orators, poets, nor writers, whose Avorks might be of service in the 
literary development of the child? Were the Southerners so 
enervated by the luxury of slavery as to produce nothing worthy 
of a place among the selections from the best writers and speakers 
of the language? The average child using the 'Stepping-Stones 
to Literature' would be forced so to conclude. For, mark you, 
this series of readers consists of seven grades; the majority of 
children in our schools never reach the last or the seventh, and in 
this one only is there a word from a Southern lip or pen. The 
selections were made, or approved, by a Boston lady, naturally, 
from the literature with which she was most familiar. The New 
England school of authors is fully represented, and biographical 
notes make sure that the child shall know the section to which 
they belong and the loving reverence in which they are held. But 
the information of this kind about the Southern authors is marked 
in its meagerness. Its extent is as follows: Patrick Henry 'lived 
in Virginia during the Revolutionary War;' Mrs. Preston Vas 
born in Philadelphia and lived in Lexington, Va. ;' 'Gen. Gordon 
was a Confederate officer;' and 'Sidney Lanier was a Southern 
poet.' For the man who does not want his child to know more 
than this of the home and nativity of Southern authors, these 
books are good enough. But if there is such a man in our land, 
his only plea for such a wish would have to be his own unbounded 
ignorance. 

" The South has produced orators whose impetuous eloquence 
has made men rush with a glad cheer into the very Jaws of death ; 
statesmen whose wise counsel has restrained the fierce heat of a 
hot-blooded people; preachers whose words have convinced the 
sinner, cheered the saint, and comforted the bereaved; writers 
whose sentiments have placed the wreath of undying glory on the 
tomb of heroes, and inspired a people of desolated homes to re- 
habilitate their land made sacred by the graves of such heroes; 
poets whose graceful fancy has gilded the mountain tops with the 
lights of other days and caused those in the gloom of despair to 



History Committee, Grand Ccvnp, C. V. 171 

look up and resolve to lead lives worthy of such hallowed associa- 
tions. 

" Must the children of the South grow up in ignorance of these 
authors? Such is the unconscious intent of our Board of Public 
Education, as evinced by their adoption of these readers for our 
schools. 

" The seventy-eighth Psalm contains a long catalogue of God's 
dealings with his chosen people. It was appointed to be sung in 
the temple service. Was it that the elders might warm their 
hearts afresh and restrain their evil inclinations as they recited 
again and again God's mercies and his wrath? Possibly this was 
one result of its use, but that it was not its main object we learn 
from the introduction to this Psalm of instruction where we read: 
'For he established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in 
Israel, which he commanded our fathers that they should make 
them known to their children; that the generation to come might 
know them, even the children which should be born; who should 
arise and declare them to their children.' There you have it. 
The divine plan was to lodge that which we wish to remain in the 
mind of the child. Can we improve upon His plan? 

" If we wish the authors so dear to us, of whom we are so justly 
proud, to be loved in the future, or even known outside of a mere 
handful of dry and bloodless bookworms, we must to-day make 
tliem known to our children. 

"Ail the criticisms so far made on the 'Stepping-Stones to 
Literature' are negative. We have pointed out tilings that are 
wanting. But there is one selection to which we shall call special 
attention. It is 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic,' by Julia 
Ward Howe, in the SLxth Reader, which represents the invading 
Northern army as the coming of the Lord in vengeance. Com- 
ment on such blasphemy is unnecessary. Surely no Southerner 
could have taken the trouble to advise himself of the existence of 
such an outrage on our children." 

Respectfully submitted. 

George L. Christian, Chairman. 



Report of the History Committee of 
the U. C. v., Made to the Reunion 
of Confederate Veterans, held at Rich- 
mond, Va., May30th-June 3d, 1907. 

BY 

Judge George L. Christian, 

of Richmond, Va. 



I. Which side was responsible for the existence of the cause or 

causes of the war ? 
II. Which side was the aggressor in provoking the conflict ? 

III. Which side had the legal right to do what was done ? 

IV. Which side conducted itself the better, and according to the 

rules of civilized warfare, pending the conflict ? 
V. The relations of the slaves to the Confederate cause ? 



REPORT 



Within the limits prescribed for this paper it is impossible to 
discuss vrith any degree of satisfaction the issues involved in the 
great conflict between the North and the South from 1861 to 1865. 
These have, however, been so fully discussed by other members of 
this committee on former occasions, that but little remains to be 
added. 

In a recent work, with the somewhat arrogant title, " The True 
History of the Civil War," the writer begins by saying : " The 
seeds of dissolution between the North and the South were carried 
to Virginia in the ships commanded by Newport and to Massa- 
chusetts in the Mayflower. Each kind fell upon soil well adapted 
to nourish its characteristics. . . .There was in the beginning an 
almost imperceptible rift between the people of the North and those 
of the South. This gradually widened until, notwithstanding the 
necessity for union, a separation in sentiment, thought, and custom 
arose. This estrangement developed until it gave to the people of 
the North and the South the aspect of two races manifesting to- 
ward each other all the antipathy of rival and dissimilar nations, 
and in their disagreement rendering impossible either sympathy 
with each other's standpoint or patient listening to each other's 
contention." 

Without intimating any opinion as to how far all the other 
statements contained in this work warrant the author in giving it 
the title selected, a few glances at history will convince the most 
skeptical that the foregoing statement is well founded. 

In 1775, when Washington's army was in front of Boston, that 
great patriot-soldier issued a stern order threatening severe punish- 
ment to any man found guilty of saying or doing anything to 
aggravate what he termed "the existing sectional feeling." And 
during the same year when Peyton Eandolph, of Virginia, the first 

[ 175 ] 



176 Official Report of the 

President of the Continental Congress, died, his brother-in-law, 
Benjamin Harrison, also from Virginia, was nominated for that 
position; but as John Hancock, of Massachusetts, was likewise 
nominated, it is said that Mr. Harrison, " to avoid any sectional 
jealousy or unkindness of feeling between the ISTorthern and South- 
ern delegates at so momentous a crisis," had his own name 
withdrawn and insisted on the election of Mr. Hancock. And so, 
too, in the Virginia Convention of 1788, Mr. Henry, in opposing 
the adoption of the Federal Constitution, after pointing out the 
provisions to which he objected, and in which his almost prophetic 
ken saw dangers lurking, which have since been realized, said after 
all he did not so much object to the form of the instrument as 
he did to the character and dispositions of those with whom we 
were forming the compact. And another distinguished Virginian, 
with fervid eloquence, exclaimed that our oppressions under the 
compact would be " worse than British tyranny." 

With these early and seemingly innate antipathies, stimulated 
and developed by growing and conflicting interests, arising out of 
tariffs, acquisitions of territory, and other causes, the " irrepressible 
conflict," as Seward termed it, would seem necessarily only a ques- 
tion of time. 

x\s to the real cause or causes which precipitated that conflict, 
there have been, and still are, differences of opinion. In our view 
the settlement of this question is secondar}^ and the vital questions 
to be determined are : 

(a) Which side, if either, was responsible for the existence of the 
cause or causes? And if slavery was the cause, as some allege, 
which side was guilty of ivrong-doing in dealing with that cause'? 

(b) Which side was the aggressor in provohing the conflict? 
(a) Which side had the legal right to do ivhat ivas done? 

(d) Which side conducted itself the better, and according to the 
rules of civilized warfare, pending the conflict? 

It seems to us that an answer to these questions is pertinent at all 
times, and at this distance for the conflict they can be discussed 
dispassionately without engendering sectional bad feeling. 



History Committee, United C. V. 177 

Our quondam enemies, knowing, as it seems to us they must 
know, that the evidence on every other point is overwhelmingly 
against them, and relying on the sentiment of the world now exist- 
ing against slavery, are prone to charge that the South fought for 
the perpetuation and extension of that institution ; or, to put it in 
the brief and common form, they charge (as some of our younger 
people in their ignorance seem to believe) that " slavery was the 
cause of the war." 

It would seem to the unprejudiced mind, that the mere statement 
of the fact (which, we believe, was a fact) that more than eighty 
per cent, of the Confederate soldiers owned no slaves, that General 
Lee, our representative soldier, freed his slaves before the war, 
whilst General Grant, the representative soldier of the North, held 
on to his until they were freed by the results of the war, and the 
further fact that General Lee said at the beginning of the war 
that if he owned all the slaves in the South and could by freeing 
them save the Union he would do so with the stroke of his pen, 
ought to furnish a satisfactory refutation of this unjust charge. 

But let us admit, for the sake of the argument only, that the 
charge is true. How, then, does the case stand as to us both on 
the law and the facts ? 

It will not be charged by the greatest enemy of the South, that it 
was in any way responsible, either for the existence of slavery, or 
for inaugurating that vilest of traffics— the African slave trade. 
On the contrary, history attests that slavery was forced upon this 
country by England, against the earnest protests of the South, as 
well as of the North, when the States were colonies under the con- 
trol of that country; that "the first statute establishing slavery in 
America is to be found in the famous Code of Fundamentals or 
Body of the Liberties of the Massachusetts Colony of New Eng- 
land, adopted in December, 1641," that the " Desire," one of the 
very first vessels built in Massachusetts, was fitted out for carrying 
on the slave trade; "that the traffic became so popular that great 
attention was paid to it by the New England shipowners, and that 
they practically monopolized it for a number of years." ("The 
11 



178 Official Report of the 

True Civil War." pp. 28, 29, 30.) And history further attests that 
Virginia was the first State, North or South, to prohibit the slave 
traffic from Africa, and that Georgia was the first to incorporate 
that prohibition in her Constitution. 

We have no desire to say unkind things about the North. But 
it is easy to show, that as long as slavery existed there, as it did in 
all the Colonies when independence Avas declared, the treatment of 
slaves by the people of that section was as harsh as, if not more so. 
than was ever known in any part of the South. Not only is this 
true, but it is also easy to show that as long as the people of the 
North were the owners of slaves they regarded and treated and dis- 
posed of them as '' property," just as the people of England had 
done since 1713, when slaves were held to be " merchandise " by 
the twelve judges of that country, with the venerable Holt at their 
head. ^Ye could further show that slavery existed at the North 
just as long as it was profitable to have it there; that the moral and 
religious sense of that section was only heard to complain of that 
institution after it was found to be unprofitable, and after the peo- 
ple of that section had, for the most part, sold their slaves to the 
people of the South; and that, after Whitney's invention of the 
cotton gin, which wrought such a revolution in the production of 
cotton at the South as to cause slave labor greatly to increase in 
value, and which induced many Northern men to engage in that 
production, these men almost invariably purchased their slaves for 
that purpose, and many of these owned them when the war broke 
out. 

The South was then in no sense responsible for the existence of 
slavery within its borders, but it was brought there against its will ; 
it was clearly recognized and attempted to be controlled and pro- 
tected by the Constitution — the supreme law of the land — and the 
people of the South, not believing that any other or better dispo- 
sition could be made of the slaves than by holding them in bondage, 
only continued to do this. 

In the meantime numerous efforts were made, both by Southern 
States and by individuals, to abolish the institution, and it is the 



History Committee, United C. Y. 179 

almost imiversal belief now that these efforts would have succeeded 
gradually, but for the harsh and unjust criticisms of the 
Southern people by some of those at the North, and the outrageous, 
illegal, and incendiary interference, by the Abolitionists and their 
emissaries. As early as 1769 the House of Burgesses of Virginia 
tried to abolish slavery in Virginia, but was prohibited by the veto 
of George III., then King of England, " in the interests of English 
commerce." And throughout the period from 1776 to 1832, when 
the work of the Abolitionists first began to be felt, the question of 
how to accomplish emancipation engaged the thought of some of 
the most eminent men of Virginia and other Southern States. 

Mr. George Lunt, a distinguished lawyer of Massachusetts, in his 
interesting work, entitled " Origin of the Late War," in which he 
shows that the North was the aggressor and wrongdoer throughout, 
says : " Slavery in the popular sense, was the cause of war. Just 
as property is the cause of robbery." 

\¥liilst we do not indorse this statement, looking at the subject 
from the view-point of a Southerner, yet if it were true, surely 
there is nothing in it from which the people of the North can take 
any comfort or credit to themselves. 

But so anxious are our former enemies to convince the world 
that the South did fight for the perpetuation of slavery that some 
of them have, either wittingly or unwittingly, resorted to mis- 
representations or misinterpretations of some of the sayings of our 
representative men to try to establish this as a fact. A noted in- 
stance of this is found in the oft-repeated charge that the late Mr. 
Alexander H. Stephens, Vice-President of the Confederacy, had 
said in his famous speech, delivered at Savannah in February, 1861, 
that " slavery was the corner stone of the Confederacy." 

We have heard this charge made by one of the most enlightened 
and liberal men at the North, and yet we have at hand utterances 
from this same Northerner tantamount to what Mr. Stephens said 
in that speech. Mr. Stephens was speaking of the Confederacy, 
just then organized, and contrasting some of the principles on 
which it was founded with some of those of the Eepublican party. 



180 Official Report of the 

then coming into power for the first time, and he said : " Our 
govemment is founded on exactly the opposite idea (that the two 
races, black and white, are equal) ; its foundations are laid; its 
corner stone rests upon the great truth that the negro is not the 
equal of the white man ; that slavery, subordination to the superior 
race, is his (the negro's) natural and normal condition." 

ISTow it will be observed in the first place, that Mr. Stephens said 
the "corner stone" of the Confederacy "rests upon the great 
truth that the negro is not the equal of the white man." And isn't 
this fact recognized as true to-day in every part of this land ? 

But hear now the utterances of this liberal and cultured ISrorth- 
erner on the same subject when he says as he does : " The Africans 
are distinctly an inferior order of being, not only in the South, or 
slave States, but throughout the North also, not entitled to unre- 
stricted pursuit on equal terms of life, liberty, and happiness." 

Is there any difference in principle between these two utterances ? 
If, as this distinguished Northerner asserts, and as every one knows 
to be true, the negroes are " distinctly an inferior order of being " 
and " not entitled to the unrestricted pursuit on equal terms [with 
the whites] of life, liberty, and happiness," does not this make 
" subordination to the superior race his natural and normal condi- 
tion," as Mr. Stephen says? 

But hear now what Mr. Lincoln, the great demigod of the North, 
had to say on this subject in a speech delivered at Charleston, 111., 
in 1858, when he said : " I will say, then, that I am not now, nor 
never have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social or 
political equality of the white and black races. I am not now, 
nor never have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, 
nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor of intermarriage with 
white people; and I will say, in addition to this, that there is a 
physical difference between the white and black races which, I be- 
lieve, will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of 
social and political equality. Inasmuch as they cannot so live, 
while they do remain together, there must be a position of superior 
and inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of 
having the superior position assigned to the white man." 



History Committee, United C. V. 181 

Again we ask: Is there any difference in principle between 
what is here said by Mr. Lincoln and what was said by :\Ir. 
Stephens in his famous " corner stone " speech ? 

And, notwithstanding Mr. Lincoln issued his "Emancipation 
Proclamation " eighteen months later, he said in his first inaugural : 
'• I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the 
institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I 
have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." 
Could he have used stronger language to show, that he believed 
not only in the legality of the position of the South on the subject 
of slavery, but that he believed in the propriety of that position as 
well? 

Mr. Toombs said in a speech delivered in Boston in 1856 : 
"The white is the superior and the black the inferior, and 
subordination, with or without law, will be the status of the African 
in this mixed society. Therefore it is to the interest of both, and 
especially to the black race, that this status should be fixed, con- 
trolled, and protected by law." And this is just as true to-day as 
it was when this statement was made by this great statesman in 
1856. 

But there is this remarkable fact in connection with slavery, and 
its relations to the war, which we have not seen elsewhere referred 
to, and which is to our mind a conclusive refutation of the charge 
that the continuation or the extinction of slavery, had any influence 
whatever on the conduct of the Southern people, and especially that 
of the Confederate soldier in that war. 

The writer belonged to one of the three companies in the army, 
the personnel of which is so vividly described by the author of 
" Four Years under Marse Eobert," in which there were serving as 
privates, many full graduates of the University of Virginia, and 
other leading colleges, both North and South. In these companies 
a variety of subjects pertaining to the war, religion, politics, philos- 
ophy, literature, and what not, were discussed with intelligence 
and often witli animation and ability, and yet neither he, nor any ot 
his comrades can recall the fact, that they ever heard the subject ot 



182 Official Report of the 

slavery, or the relations of the slaves to the war, referred to in any 
way during that period, except that, when it was determined to put 
slaves in our army, a violent protest against doing so went up from 
the ranks, and the only thing which even partially reconciled our 
men to this proposed action, was the knowledge of the fact that it 
had the sanction and approval of General Lee. We have inquired 
of comrades of various other commands about this, and with the 
like result. Do men fight for a thing or a cause they never speak 
of or discuss ? It seems to us that to ask this question is to furnish 
the answer. 

Not only is the foregoing statement true, but with the exception 
of the steps taken to send negroes to help erect fortifications, em- 
ploying them as laborers, etc., but little consideration seems to have 
been given them, or of their status to the war, either by the Con- 
gress or the Cabinet of the Confederacy. The reasons for this are 
manifest to those of us who lived in those days, but a word of ex- 
planation may be necessary to those who have since come on the 
stage of life. In the first place slavery, as it existed in the South, 
was patriarchal in its character; the slaves (servants, as we called 
them) were regarded and treated as members of the families to 
which they severally belonged; with rare exceptions, they were 
treated with kindness and consideration, and frequently the rela- 
tions between the slave and his owner, were those of real affection 
and confidence. As Mr. Lunt, the Boston writer, from whom we 
have already quoted, says : " The negroes were perfectly contented 
with their lot. In general they tvere not only happy in their con- 
dition, hut proud of it." 

Their owners trusted them with their families, their farms, and 
their affairs, and this confidence was rarely betrayed — scarcely ever, 
unless the slaves were forced to violate their trusts by coming in 
contact Avith the Federal armies, or were beguiled and betrayed 
themselves by mean and designing white men. The truth is, both 
the white and the black people of the South, regarded the Confed- 
erate cause alike as their cause, and looked to its success with almost, 
if not equal, anxiety and delight. A most striking illustration of 



History Committee, United C. V. 183 

this and of the readiness of the slaves to fight even, if necessar}', for 
the Confederate cause is furnished by the following incident : ' In 
February, 1865, when negro troops had been authorized to be en- 
rolled in the Confederate army, there were employed at Jackson 
Hospital, near Eichmond, seventy-two negro men (slaves). The 
surgeon in charge, the late Dr. F. W. Hancock, of Richmond, had 
these men formed in line; and after asking them " if they would be 
willing to take up arms to protect their masters' families, homes, and 
their own, from an attacking foe, sixty out of seventy-tivo responded 
that they ivotdd volunteer to go to the trenches and fight the enemy 
to the hitter end." ("War Rebellion Records," Series IV., 
A^olume II., p. 1193.) 

At the date here referred to, we know, that the life of the con- 
federate soldier was one of the greatest hardship and peril, and the 
fact that, five out of every six of these negroes, were then ready to 
volunteer and go to the trenches, showed conclusively how truly they 
regarded the Confederate cause as their cause as well as that of the 
white people of the South. Indeed, we doubt if a larger per cent, 
of the whites, in any part of the country, would have volunteered to 
go to the front at that stage of the war. If, then, it were true, as 
alleged, that the white people of the South were fighting for slavery, 
does it not necessarily follow that the slaves themselves were ready 
and willing to fight for it too ? One of these propositions is just 
as true as the other. 

We think we have shown then that even if we admit that slavery 
was, as falsely charged, the " cause of the war " the South was in 
no way responsible for the existence of that cause ; but it was a con- 
dition forced upon it, one recognized by the supreme law of the 
land, one which the South dealt with legally and justly, as contem- 
plated by that law, and history shows that in every respect, and in 
every instance, the aggressions and violations of the law ivere com- 
mitted hy the North. Mr. Lunt says : " Of four several compro- 
mises between the two sections of country since the Revolutionary 
War, each has been kept by the South and violated by the Is^orth." 
Indeed, we challenge the North to point out one single instance in 



184 Official Report of the 

which the South violated the Constitution or any of the laws made 
in pursuance thereof; whilst, on the contrary, fourteen of the 
Northern States passed acts nullifying the fugitive slave law, 
passed by Congress in obedience to the Constitution, denounced and 
defied the decisions of the Supreme Court, and Judge Black, of 
Pennsylvania, says of the Abolitionists : " They applauded John 
Brown to the echo, for a series of the basest murders on record. 
They did not conceal their hostility to the Federal and State gov- 
ernments nor deny their enmity to all laws which protected white 
men. The Constitution stood in their way, and they cursed it 
bitterly. The Bible was quoted against them, and they reviled God 
the Almighty himself." 

(2) Our next inquiry is: Which side was the aggressor in pro- 
voicing the conflict? 

Mr. Hallam, in his " Constitutional History of England," states 
a universally recognized principle when he says : " The aggressor 
in war — that is, he who begins it — is not the first who uses force, 
but the first who renders force necessary." 

We think we have already shown, by ISTorthern authorities, that 
the North was the aggressor and violator of the Constitution and 
of the legal rights of the South in reference to what they allege to 
be the " cause of the war," and it is easy to show, by like author- 
ities, that it was clearly the aggressor in bringing on the war. 

On the 7th of April, 1861, President Davis said : " With the 
Lincoln administration rests the responsibility of precipitating a 
collision and the fearful evils of a cruel war." 

In his reply to Mr. Lincoln's call for Virginia's quota of seventy- 
five thousand troops to coerce the South, on April 15, 1861, Gov- 
ernor Letcher said : " You have chosen to inaugurate civil war, 
and you can get no troops from Virginia for any such purpose." 

But we are not content to rest this question on the statements 
of these Southern authorities, as high as they are, but will let 
Northern writers say what they think about this important mattei*. 



History Committee, United C. V. 185 

Mr. Lunt says in reference to Mr. Lincoln sending tlie fleet to 
reenforce Sumter in April, 1861 : "It was intended to draw the 
fire of the Confederates, and was a silent aggression with the object 
of producing an active aggression from the other side." 

Mr. Benjamin J. Williams, another Massachusetts writer, says: 
" The South was invaded and a war of subjugation, destined to be 
the most gigantic which the world has ever seen, was begun by the 
iFederal government against the seceding States, in complete and 
amazing disregard of the foundation principle of its own existence, 
as affirmed in the Declaration of Independence, that governments 
derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." 

But let us hear what Mr. Lincoln himself has to say on this ques- 
tion, and with his testimony we shall regard the question as con- 
clusively settled. In reply to a committee from Chicago sent to 
intercede with him to be relieved from sending more troops from 
that city to the Northern armies, Mr. Lincoln said in a tone of bit- 
terness : " Gentlemen, after Boston, Chicago has been the chief 
instrument in bringing this war on the country. The Northwest 
has opposed the South, as New England has opposed the South. It 
is you who are largely responsible for making blood flow as it has. 
You called for war until we had it; you called for emancipation, 
and I have given it to you. Whatever you have asked, you have 
had. Now you come here begging to be let off. You ought to be 
ashamed of yourselves." (See Tarbell's "Life of Lincoln," 
Volume II., p. 149.) 

Not only then are we justified in saying that the North was the 
aggressor in bringing on the war, but the latest Northern writer 
we have read from on this subject states this fact in as unmistak- 
able terms as it was stated by President Davis on April the 7th, 
1861, above quoted. This writer says:— 

" The determination expressed by Lincoln in his inaugural 'to 
hold, occupy and possess the property and places belonging to the 
United States,' precipitated the outbreak." (James Kendall Hos- 
mer, L .L. D., in the American Nation; A History, Vol. 20, page 
26). 



186 Official Report of the 

And again on page 43 the same writer says : — 

" Lincoln's announced determination 'to hold, occupy and possess 
the property and places belonging to the Government, and to collect 
the duties and imposts' was practicalhj the announcement of an 
offensive war." 

(3) Which side had the legal right to do what was done? 

On the column of the monument erected to our great civic leader 
are the words pro aris et focis, meaning that the real cause of the 
South was that we fought in defense of our altars and our firesides. 
And the man who would not 

" Strike for his altars and his fires, 
God and his native land," 

is a craven and a coward and unworthy even of the name of man. 
Our country was invaded by armed men intent on coercion and 
conquest. We met them on the threshold and beat them and drove 
them back as long as we had anything to eat or strength to fight 
with. We could do no more, we could do no less, and history, our 
children, and even many of our former enemies, now applaud our 
conduct. 

There were, however, two, and but two, question really involved 
in the conflict. We can scarcely do more than state these and cite 
some of the many Northern authorities to sustain the position that 
the South was right on both of these. They were: (1) The right 
of a State to secede, and (2) the right of the Federal government 
to coerce a seceding State. As to the first of these questions, the 
late Judge Black, of Pennsylvania, said what is true : " Secession, 
like slavery, was first planted in New England. There it grew and 
flourished and spread its branches far over the land before it was 
ever dreamed of at the South." And he further says that John 
Quincy Adams, in 1839, and Abraham Lincoln, in 1847, made elab- 
orate arguments in favor of the legal right of a State to secede. 

Mr. William Eawle, also late of Pennsylvania, in his work on the 
Constitution, the text-book used at West Point before the war, says : 
" It depends on the State itself to retain or abolish the principle of 



History Committee, United C. V. 187 

representation, because it depends on itself whether it will continue 
a member of the Union." 

Timothy Pickering, Josiah Quincy, and Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge, 
all of Massachusetts, the late Horace Greeley, Goldwin Smith, 
General Don Piet, of the Federal Army, and the Hartford Conven- 
tion, all asserted and affirmed the same doctrine. And we Jcnow, 
that had not this light been understood to exist at the time of the 
adoption of the Constitution, it tvould never have been adopted. 

As to the second of these questions — i. e., the right of the Federal 
government to coerce a seceding State. This question was dis- 
cussed to some extent in the convention which framed the Consti- 
tution. Mr. Madison (the "Father of the Constitution") said: 
" The more he reflected on the use of force, the more he doubted 
the practicability, the justice, and the efficiency of it when 
applied to people collectively and not individually. A union of the 
States containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its 
own destruction." (Italics ours.) 

And Mr. Hamilton said : " But how can this force be exercised 
on the States collectively? It is impossible. It amounts to war 
between the parties. Foreign powers also will not be idle specta- 
tors. They will interpose, and a dissolution of the Union will 
ensue." (5th Mad. Pap. 140 and 200.) And no such right or 
power can be found anywhere in the Constitution. 

The late James C. Carter, of ¥ew York (a native of New Eng- 
land), one of the greatest lawyers this country has ever produced, 
said : " I may hazard the opinion that if the question had been 
raised, not in 1860, but in 1788, immediately after the adoption of 
the Constitution, whether the Union, as formed by that instrument, 
could lawfully treat the secession of a State as rebellion and sup- 
press it by force, few of those who participated in forming that in- 
strument would have answered in the affirmative." 

In November, 1860, the New York Herald said: "Each State 
is organized as a complete government, holding the purse and wield- 
ing the sword, possessing the right to break the tie of confederation 
as a nation might break a treaty, and to repel coercion as a nation 



188 Official Report of the 

might repel invasion. . . . Coercion, if it were possible, is out of the 
question." 

The question was maturely considered by Mr. Buchanan and his 
Cabinet at the close of his administration, and it luas unanimously 
determined that no such right existed. 

One of the resolutions of the platform of the Chicago Convention, 
on vrhich Mr, Lincoln was elected, and which he reaffirmed in his 
first inaugural, was the following: 

"Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the 
States, and especially the right of each State to order and control 
its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment ex- 
clusively, is essential to the balance of power on which the perfec- 
tion and endurance of our political fabric depends, and we denounce 
the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or 
Territory, no matter under what pretext, as among the gravest of 
crimes." 

To show that Mr. Lincoln was fully cognizant of the fact that he 
was committing this "gravest of crimes" when he caused his armies 
to invade the Southern States, we will give his own definition of the 
meaning of the terms " invasion " and " coercion," as contained in 
his speech delivered at Indianapolis on his journey to Washington 
to be inaugurated in February, 1861. He asks: "What, then, is 
''coercion?' Wliat is 'invasion?' Would the marching of an army 
into South Carolina, without the consent of her people, and with 
hostile intent toward them be 'invasion?' I certainly think it 
would, and it would he 'coercion' also if South Carolinians were 
forced to submit." 

Is not this exactly what he did to South Carolina and to all the 
other Southern States? And is it not true that this "gravest of 
crimes" having been committed by him without the authority of 
Congress, or any legal right, was the sole cause why the Southern 
people went to war ? We know that such is the fact, and surely no 
further authorities can be necessary to show that the South was 
right on both of the only two questions involved in the war ; and if 
it had not resisted and fought under the circumstances, in which it 
was placed, it would have been eternally disgraced. 



History Committee, United C. V. 189 

We can only state and without discussing at all our last inquiry, 

which is : 

(4) Which side conducted itself the better and according to tJie 
rules of civilized warfare pending the conflict? 

With the notoriously infamous records of the conduct of Sheri- 
dan, Hunter, and Milroy in the Valley (to say nothing of how far 
Grant participated in that conduct), of that of Pope and Steinwehr 
in Piedmont, Va., of that of Butler in Norfolk and New Orleans, 
and, worse than all, the confessed vandalism of Sherman on his 
"March to the Sea," together with his burning Atlanta and 
Columbia, the last stimulated and encouraged by Halleck, the chief 
of staff of the armies of the Union; and then contrast all this with 
the humane order of General Lee, on his campaign of invasion into 
Pennsylvania, and the conduct of his army in that campaign, and 
there can be but one answer to this inquiry. That answer is that 
the South did right and that the North did wrong. 
"God holds the scales of justice; 

He will measure praise and blame. 

And the South will stand the verdict, 

And will stand it without shame." 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the History Committee, 
-g ^ y George L. Christian. 



STONEWALL JACKSON 

AN ADDRESS BY 

HUNTER McGUIRE, M. D., L. L. D. 

Medical Director Jackson's Corps, A. N. V. 

At tlie dedication of Jackson Memorial Hall, Virginia Military In- 
stitute, and repeated before R. E. Lee Camp No. 1, C. V. 
Richmond, Va., July 9th, 1897. 



STONEWALL JACKSON. 

Mr. President, General, Cadets of the Virginia Military Institute, 
Ladies and Gentlemen: 

I understand, and I beg this audience to understand, that I am 
here to-day, not because I have any place among the orators, or am 
able to do anything except "to speak right on" and "tell you that 
which you yourselves do know," but because the noblest heritage I 
shall hand down to my children is the fact, that Stonewall Jackson 
condescended to hold and to treat me as his friend. I know, and 
you know, that as long as valor and virtue are honored among men, 
as long as greatness of mind and grandeur of soul excite our admi- 
ration, as long as Virginia parents desire noble examples to set be- 
fore their sons, and as long as there dwells in the souls of Virginia 
bo3^s that fire of native nobleness which can be kindled by tales of 
heroic endeavor, so long will Virginia men and women be ready to 
hear of the words and the deeds of Virginia's heroic sons, and, 
therefore, ready and glad to hear how valorous and how virtuous, 
how great and how grand, in every thought and action, was the Vir- 
ginian of whom I speak to-day— to know in what awesome Titanic 
mould was cast that quiet Professor who once did his duty here; 
that silent stranger, whom no man knew until " the fire of God fell 
upon him in the battle-field," as it did upon Arthur— the fire by 
which Sir Launcelot knew him for his king— the fire that like the 
"live coal from off the altar touched the lips" of Jackson and 
brought from them that kingly voice which the eagle of victory 
knew and obeyed. For a king was Stonewall Jackson, if ever 
royaltv, anointed as by fire, appeared among men. 

When Egypt, or Persia, or Greece, or Eome was the world ; when 
the fame oi a king reached the borders of his own dominion but 
scarcelv crossed them; when a great conqueror was known as far 
as his banners could fly; friends (or enemies) could assign a war- 
rior's rank amongst mankind and his place in history. These lat- 
13 [193] 



194 Stoneivall Jaclcson. 

ter ages have agreed that a Eamases, a Cyrus, an Alexander or a 
Constantine shall be styled " The Great," accepting therein the esti- 
mate put upon them by the contracted times in which they lived, 
supported perchance by the story of their deeds as laboriously 
chiseled on some long-buried slab, recorded on some hardly-recov- 
ered sheets of ancient parcliment, or written on some dozen pages 
of a literature, the language of which serves the purposes of the 
ghosts along the Styx, as they tell each other of glories long de- 
parted. 

To-day the world is wide, and before the world's tribunal each 
candidate for historic honors must appear. The world's estimate, 
and that alone, posterity will accept, and even that it will hereafter 
most carefully revise. 

The young Emperor of Germany, seeking to decree his grand- 
father's place in historj^, would have him styled " William the 
Great." Here and there, in one nation and another, press and 
people combine to deify some popular hero, and offer him for the 
plaudits or the worship of the age. It is a vain endeavor. The 
universal judgment cannot be forestalled. No force nor artifice can 
make mankind accept as final the false estimate instead of the true. 
Money, powerful, dangerous and threatening as it now is in this 
Republic, cannot for long buy a verdict. The unbiased world alone 
is capable of stamping upon the forehead of man, that mark which 
neither the injustice of adverse interest, nor envy's gnawing tooth, 
nor the ceaseless flow of the river of time, is able to efface. 

Therefore, it was with swelling heart and deep thankfulness, that 
I recently heard some of the first soldiers and military students of 
England declare, that within the past two hundred years the Eng- 
lish-speaking race has produced but five soldiers of the first rank — 
Marlborough, Washington, Wellington, Robert Lee and Stonewall 
Jackson. I heard them declare that Jackson's campaign in the 
Shenandoah Valley, in which you, and you, and you, and I myself 
in my subordinate place, followed this immortal, was the finest 
specimen of strategy and tactics of which the world has any record ; 
that in this series of marches and battles there was never a blunder 



Stonetvall JacJcson. 195 

committed by Jackson ; that this campaign in the Valley was supe- 
rior to either of those made by Napoleon in Italy. One British 
officer, who teaches strategy in a great European college, told me 
that he used this campaign as a model of strategy and tactics and 
dwelt upon it for several months in his lectures ; that it was taught 
for months of each session in the schools of Germany ; and that Von 
Moltke, the great strategist, declared it was without a rival in the 
world's history. This same British officer told me that he had rid- 
den on horseback over the battle-fields of the Valley and carefully 
studied the strategy and tactics there displayed by Jackson. He 
had followed him to Eichmond, where he joined with Lee in the 
campaign against McClellan in 1863 ; that he had followed his detour 
around Pope — his management of his troops at second Manassas; 
that he had studied his environment of Harper's Ferry and its cap- 
ture, his part of the fight at Sharpsburg, and his flank movement 
around Hooker, and that he had never blundered. " Indeed," he 
added, " Jackson seemed to me (him) inspired." Another British 
soldier told me that for its numbers the Army of Northern Virginia 
had more force and power than any other army that ever existed. 

High as is my estimate of the deeds of the Second Corps of the 
Army of Northern Virginia, I heard these opinions with a new 
elation, for I knew they presented the verdict of impartial history ; 
the verdict that posterity will stamp with its approval ; a verdict— 
in itself such a tribute to valor and virtue, devotion and truth— as 
shall serve to inspire, exalt and ennoble our children, and our chil- 
dren's children, to the remotest generations. 

You will not be surprised to hear of my telling them that of these 
five, thus overtopping all the rest, three were born in the State of 
Virginia ; nor wonder that I reverently remember that two of them 
lie, side by side, here in Lexington, while one is sleeping by the great 
river, there to sleep till time shall be no more— the three consecra- 
tincr in death the soil of Virginia, as in life they stamped their 
mother State as the native home of men who, living as they lived, 
shall be fit to go on quest for the Holy Grail. ^ 

And now I hope I may be able to tell you what evidences of. this 



196 Stonewall Jackson. 

accredited greatness — what warrant for the justness of this ver- 
dict — I, and others with me, saw in the quiet of the camp and in 
the rush of the battle ; and how I saw with my own eyes, and stand 
here to declare, that his greatness vanished not nor faded, but the 
brighter shone, when the shadows of evening were falling and the 
darkness of death gathered around him. 

In seeking to define Jackson's place in history I accept Lord 
Wolseley's definition of a great commander. He declares, in effect, 
that the mark of this rare character are : First of all, the power — 
the instinct, the inspiration — to divine the condition and the pur- 
poses of your enemy. Secondly, the genius that in strategy in- 
stantly devises the combinations most likely to defeat those pur- 
poses. Thirdly, the physical and moral courage — the absolute self- 
reliance — that takes the risk of decision, and the skill that promptly 
and properly delivers the blow that shatters the hostile plans, so 
managing one's own forces (even when small) as to have the 
greater number at the point of attack. Fourthly, the cool Judg- 
ment that is unshaken by the clash and clamor of emergencies. 
And last, but not least, the provision — the caution — that cares for 
the lives and well-being of the private soldiers, and the personal 
magnetism that rouses the enthusiasm and affection, that makes the 
commander's presence on the battle-field the incentive to all that 
human beings can dare, and the unquestioned hope and sure prom- 
ise of victory. 

Many incidents of Jackson's career prove that he possessed the 
instinctive power to know the plight, and to foretell the purposes 
of the Federal army and its commanders. To describe the first 
that I recall : "Wliile dressing his wounded hand at the first 
Manassas, at the field-hospital of the brigade at Young's Branch, 
near the Lewis House, I saw President Davis ride up from Manas- 
sas. He had been told by stragglers that our army had been de- 
feated. He stopped his horse in the middle of the little stream, 
stood up in his stirrups (the palest, sternest face I ever saw) and 
cried to the great crowd of soldiers " I am President Davis — follow 
me back to the field." General Jackson did not hear distinctly. I 
told him who it was and what he said. He stood up, took off his 



stonewall Jackson. 197 

cap and cried, "We have whipped them — they ran like sheep. 
Give me 10,000 men and I will take Washington City to-morrow." 
Who doubts now that he could have done so ? 

When, in May, 1862, he whipped Banks at Winchester, and had, 
what seemed then and even now, the audacity to follow him to Har- 
per's Ferry, he not only knew the number and condition of Banks's 
army, but in his mind he clearly saw, the locality and strength of 
the armies of Fremont and McDowell, gradually converging from 
the east and west towards Strasburg to cut off his retreat. He 
knew the leaders of these hostile forces, their skill and moral 
courage, and calculated on it, and this so nicely that he was able to 
pass between them without a moment to spare. Indeed, he held 
these hosts apart, with his skirmishers, while his main army passed 
through, each commander of the Federal army in doubt and dread 
whether the mighty and mysterious Jackson intended one of his 
overwhelming blows for him ; both, doubtless, hoping the other one 
would catch it. Certainly they acted in a way to indicate this. 

With the help of Ashby and Stuart, he always knew the location 
and streng-th of his enemy. He knew the fighting quality of 
the enemy's forces, too. " Let the Federals get very close," he said 
to Ewell at Cross Keys, " before your inf antr}^ fires, they won't stand 
long." I asked him at Cedar Eun if he expected a battle that day. 
He smiled and said, " Banks is in our front and he is generally will- 
ing to fight," " and," he added very slowly and, as if to himself, 
" and he generally gets whipped." 

At ^lalvern Hill, when a portion of our army had been beaten and, 
to some extent demoralized. Hill and Ewell and Early came to tell 
him they could make no resistance if McClellan attacked them in 
the morning. It was difficult to wake General Jackson, as he was 
exhausted and verj^ sound asleep. I tried it myself, and after many 
efforts partly succeeded. ^Tien he was made to understand what 
was wanted, he said " McClellan and his army will be gone by day- 
light,'' and went to sleep again. The generals thought him mad, 
but the prediction was true. 

At Sharpsburg, when on the 17th, our army had repulsed three 



198 Stonewall Jachson. 

great assaults in succession and was reduced to a thin line, happen- 
ing to have urgent business that took me to the front, I expressed to 
General Jackson my apprehension lest the surging mass of the 
enemy might get through. He replied, " I think they have done 
their worst and there is now no danger of the line being broken." 
McClellan's inaction during the long 18th, when General Lee stood 
firm and offered him battle, proves that Jackson knew his enemy's 
condition. 

At Fredericksburg, after Burnside's repulse, he asked me how 
many bandages I had. I told him, and asked why he wanted to 
know? He said he wanted to have a piece of white cloth to tie 
on each man's arm that his soldiers might recognize each other in a 
night attack, and he asked to be allowed to make such an attack 
and drive the foe into the swollen river or capture him. Subsequent 
events demonstrated that he would have accomplished his purpose. 

It was said that at a council of war, called by General Lee after 
the Fredericksburg battle, Jackson went to sleep during the discus- 
sion, and when suddenly aroused and asked for his advice he sim- 
ply replied " Drive them into the river." 

That he possessed the genius to devise and the skill and courage 
to deliver the blow needed to defeat his foes; is this not amply 
proved by the fact, that his army in the Valley campaign was never 
over 17,000, and generally less, and that for a time, he was keeping 
at bay 100,000 Federal soldiers — 60,000 in or near the great Valley, 
and 40,000 at Fredericksburg — soundly thrashing in the field, from 
time to time, large portions of this great army? Not to mention 
details, Jackson and his small force influenced the campaign to the 
extent of keeping 100,000 Federal troops away from Kichmond, and 
in compelling the Federal Government to employ a larger force than 
the whole of the Confederate army, in order, as Lincoln said, " to 
protect the National Capital." In the operations necessary to accom- 
plish this result, he encountered one (his first and only) defeat — 
that at Kernstown, which he and others, who trusted his judgment 
believed was due to an untimely order to fall back, given by one 
of his bravest and truest brigade commanders. But that defeat 



stonewall Jaclson. 199 

was so full of brilliant results to our cause that the Confederate 
Congress thanked him for the battle. The gallant and brilliant 
officer who gave this order was put under arrest (whether wisely or 
not is not for present discussion), but the effect was to prevent any 
other man or officer from ordering a retreat on any subsequent field 
of battle where Jackson was, whether out of ammunition or not. 
Thence he went immediately to McDowell, Winchester, Cross Keys 
and Port Republic, winning battle after battle, having always the 
smaller army, but the larger number actually fighting (except at 
Cross Keys), illustrating the truth of what a Federal officer tells 
us a Yankee soldier said after the stern struggle at Groveton: 
" These rebels always put their small numbers in strong positions 
and then manage to be the stronger at the point where the rub 
comes." And so, notvv'ithstanding the tremendous odds against 
him in the whole theatre of action, he met another test of a great 
commander, in concentrating against his opponent the larger force. 
I cannot give you any instances or illustrations of the mental 
action by which he reached his conclusions or devised the combina- 
tions which defeated his enemy; for Jackson took no counsel save 
with his "familiar," the Genius of War, and his God. He did 
hold one, and only one council of ivar. In March, 1862, at Win- 
chester, Jackson had in his small army less than 5,000 men. Gen- 
eral Banks, who was advancing upon Winchester from Harper's 
Ferry and Charlestovm, had 30,000 men. General Jackson repeat- 
edly offered General Banks battle, but the latter declined, and on the 
night of the 11th of March went into camp four miles from Win- 
chester. General Jackson sent for his officers and proposed to make 
a night attack, but the plan was not approved by the council. He 
sent for the officers a second time, some hours later, and again urged 
them to agree to make the night assault, but they again disapproved 
of the attempt. So, late in the afternoon, we withdrew from Win- 
chester and marched to Newtown. I rode with the General as we 
left the place, and as we reached a high point overlooking the town, 
we both turned to look at Winchester, just evacuated and now left 
to the mercy of the Federal soldiers. I think that a man may some- 



200 Stonewall JacJcson. 

times yield to overwhelming emotion, and I was utterly overcome 
by the fact that I was leaving all that I held dear on earth, but my 
emotion was arrested by one look at Jackson. His face was fairly 
blazing with the fire that was burning in him, and I felt awed be- 
fore him. Presently he cried out with a manner almost savage, 
" That is the last council of war I will ever hold !" And it was — 
his first and last. Thereafter he held council in the secret cham- 
bers of his own heart, and acted. Instantaneous decision, abso- 
lute self-reliance, every action, every word displayed. His voice 
displayed it in battle. It was not the peal of the trumpet, but the 
sharp crack of the rifle — sudden, imperative, resolute. 

I venture a word as to a battle in which Jackson's conduct has 
been criticised. The delay at Gaines' Mill has been the subject of 
much comment. The truth is, that General Lee directed Jackson 
to place his corps on our extreme left, where he would be joined by 
the command of D. H. Hill. He ordered him to form in line of 
battle with Hill and wait until McClellan retreated towards the 
Pamunkey, and then to strike him a side blow and capture him. 
For this purpose Jackson had, with Hill's division, 25,500 men. 
When we arrived at Gaines' Mill, D. H. Hill had engaged the enemy. 
Jackson, obeying Lee's instructions, sent an aide to inform Hill of 
the orders of the Commander-in-Chief, and it was with some diffi- 
culty that he withdrew him from the fight. It was only when 
Jackson found that McClellan was not being driven from his works 
he put into the battle every man he had. 

General Jackson waited at White Oak Swamp during the battle 
of Frazier's Farm because he was directed to stay on this road until 
further orders. As a soldier he could do nothing else. He gave 
the same unquestioned obedience to the officer above him, that he 
demanded of those under him. Moreover, the stream was impass- 
able for infantry under fire, and impassable for artillery with- 
out a bridge. Jackson and his staff, v/ith Colonel Munford's 
cavalry, tested it, riding across through quagmires that took us up 
to the girths of our liorses ; but by a fierce artillery attack he kept 
Franklin's and part of Sumner's corps from joining with McCall 
to resist the attack at Frazier's Farm. This attack General Jack- 



StoneivaJl Jachson. 201 

son began with twenty-eiglit pieces of artillery at 13 o'clock that 
day. The battle at Frazier's Farm began at 5 o'clock the same 
afternoon. White Oak Swamp road is but five miles distant. If 
General Lee had wanted Jackson he could have sent for him, but 
General Lee did not want him. He expected to defeat McCall, and 
isolate Franklin and Sumner, and then capture them with Jackson's 
co-operation from the position he knew he occupied. 

Cedar Eun battle has been criticised as a barren victory, but 
while it did not accomplish all that Jackson intended, it was far 
from barren in its results. Pope, who had more than double the 
force of Jackson, was preparing to attack us at Gordonsville and 
destroy the railroad. We remained two weeks at Gordonsville, 
waiting for Pope to make a false move, when, finding that Pope's 
divisions were widely separated — the left wing being at Fredericks- 
burg and the right under Siegel at Sperryville, fifty-five miles from 
the left wing, the main army on the Eappahannock, with Banks 
thrown out to Culpeper Courthouse — Jackson determined to strike 
them in detail. I know this was his purpose and his subsequent re- 
port proves it. He intended first to attack his old antagonist, Banks, 
at Culpeper, and then to descend like a thunderbolt on McDowell at 
Fredericksburg. On our route we lost an entire day because one of 
the division commanders marched two miles instead of twenty-five. 
This gave Pope time to concentrate his forces. That night, as we 
pursued the beaten army of General Banks, we captured some of 
McDowell's men, proving that the Federals had had time to con- 
centrate, and this prevented him from carrying out his original 
plan of 'striking them in detail. As it was, Banks's army was so 
crippled as to be " of little use," as General Pope reports, " during 
the rest of that campaign." The prestige of our troops and com- 
manders was raised, and the Federal confidence in Pope dinnmshed. 
But more than this, and more important. Pope's plans were dis- 
concerted and ten days were gained, by which time General Lee and 
the rest of our army joined us. 

The imperturbable coolness of a great commander was pre-emi- 
nently his He was always calm and self controlled. He never 
lost his balance for one moment. At first Manassas, when we 



202 Stonewall Jachson. 

reached the field and found our men under Bee and Bartow falling 
back — when the confusion was greatest, and Bee in despair cried 
out '' They are driving us back " — there was not the slightest emo- 
tion apparent about Jackson. His thin lips were compressed and 
his eyes ablaze when he curtly said, " Then, sir, we will give them 
the bayonet." At Port Republic, where he was so nearly captured, 
as he escaped he instantly ordered the Thirty-seventh Virginia regi- 
ment, which was fortunately near at hand and in line, to charge 
through the bridge and capture the Federal piece of artillery placed 
at its mouth. 

In the severe engagement at Chantilly, fought during a 
heavy thunder-storm, when the sound of the artillery of heaven 
could scarcely be distinguished from that of the army, an aide came 
up with a message from A. P. Hill that his ammunition was wet 
and that he asked leave to retire. " Give my compliments to Gen- 
eral Hill, and tell him that the Yankee ammunition is as wet as his ; 
to stay where he is." There was always danger and blood when he 
began his terse sentences with " Give my compliments." 

One of the most striking illustrations of his courage and absolute 
self-reliance was shown at the battle of Groveton. He had been de- 
tached from General Lee's army, and in a march of two days cap- 
tured Manassas Junction, directly in Pope's rear, and destroyed 
the immense stores accumulated at that point. After this he 
marched his command to a field which gave him a good defensive 
position and the readiest means of Joining with Longstreet. At 
that point, if he was compelled to retreat, he had the Aldie Gap be- 
hind him, through which he could pass and rejoin General Lee. 
Pope, disappointed at not finding Jackson at Manassas, and con- 
fused by the different movements that different portions of Jack- 
son's corps had made, was utterly disconcerted and directed his 
army to move towards Centre ville, where they could easily join with 
the forces of MeClellan, then at Alexandria. Almost any other 
soldier would have been satisfied with what had already been accom- 
plished — the destruction of the immense stores of the enemy, the 
forcing of Pope from the Rappahannock to Bull Run, and the de- 
moralization produced in the Federal army — but General Jackson 



stonewall Jackson. 203 

knew that the Confederate design demanded that a battle with Pope 
should be made before reinforcements were received from MeClel- 
lan, and so he determined with his little army to attack the Fed- 
eral forces and compel them to stop and give battle. Our army lay 
concealed by the railroad cut, the woods and the configuration of 
the ground, near the same field on which we had fought the first 
battle of Manassas. The different columns of the enemy were mov- 
ing in such a confused way that it was difficult to tell what they in- 
tended. General Jackson, who had been up the whole of the pre- 
\dous night directing the movements of his troops, was asleep in a 
fence-corner, when mounted scouts came in to inform us that a 
large body of Pope's army was moving by us on the Warrenton road 
and in the direction of Centreville. As soon as he was waked up 
and informed of the state of affairs. General Jackson sprang up 
and moved rapidly towards his horse, buckling on his sword as he 
moved, and urging the greatest speed on all around him, he directed 
Ewell and Taliaferro to attack the enemy, which proved to be 
King's division. With about 20,000 men he attacked Pope's army 
of 77,000 men, so determined was he that Pope should not escape to 
Centreville, there to intrench and wait for the reinforcements of 
McClellan, then on their way to him. The attack that evening 
brought on the bloody battle of Groveton. 

I must recur to the battle of Sharpsburg, as that was one of the 
sternest trials to which Jackson was ever subjected. Eighty thou- 
sand Federal soldiers under McClellan attacked 35,000 Con- 
federates under Lee, making the contest a most unequal one. It 
was a pitched battle in an open field. There were no fortifications 
or entrenchments, and the ground, as far as sites for artillery went, 
was decidedly more favorable for the Federals. To defend the left 
wing of the Confederate line, Jackson had, including D. H. Hill's 
thre'e brio-ades, less than 8,000 men. In front of him was Hooker 
with 15,000, Mansfield with 10,000, and Sumner with Sedgwick's 
division, 6,000—8,000 Confederates to 31,000 veteran Federal sol- 
diers. Hooker, at daylight, attacked and was routed. Then Mans- 
field came over the same ground and met the same fate. Then 
Sumner came up and was thrashed. Eight thousand half-starved, 



204 Stoneivall JacTcson. 

shoeless, ragged Confederates had routed 31,000 of McClellan's best 
soldiers, and in a plain open field without an entrenchment. But 
the 8,000 Confederates were veterans and were commanded by 
Stonewall Jackson. That night 20,000 dead and wounded men 
lay on the field of Sharpsburg. 

About one o'clock that day I rode forward to see the General. I 
found him a little to the left of the Dunkard church. I remember 
that I had my saddle-pockets filled with peaches to take to him — 
knowing how much he enjoyed fruit — and was eating a peach when 
I approached him. The first thing he asked me was, if I had any 
more. I told him yes, that I had brought him some. After he 
got them he began to eat them ravenously, so much so, that he 
apologized and told me he had had nothing to eat that day. I told 
him v/hy I had come. That our lines were so thin and the enemy 
so strong that I was afraid that at some point our line might be 
broken, and, in the rush, the hospital captured. He was perfectly 
cool and quiet, although he had withstood three separate attacks of 
vastly superior numbers. He thought the enemy had done their 
worst and made me the reply I have already quoted, but he agreed 
that I should establish the hospital in Shepherdstown. Before re- 
turning to my post I rode forward with him to see the old Stone- 
wall Division. They had been reduced to a very small body of men 
and were commanded by Colonel Grigsby. In some cases lieu- 
tenants commanded brigades and sergeants, regiments. Kearly all 
his generals had fallen, but he had two left who were hosts within 
themselves — the unconquerable D. H. Hill, and that grand old sol- 
dier, Jubal Early. "Wliile talking to Grigsby I saw, at a distance in 
a field, men lying down, and supposed it was a line of battle. I 
asked Colonel Grigsby, Why he did not move that line of battle to 
make it conform to his own ? He said " Those men you see 
lying over there, which you suppose to be a line of battle, are all 
dead men. They are Georgia soldiers." It was a hard struggle, 
but Jackson always expected to hold his lines. I heard him once 
say " We sometimes fail to drive the enemy from his position. He 
always fails to drive us." But he was never content with the de- 
fensive, however successful or however exhausting. In this most 



Stonewall Jaclcson. 205 

destructive battle he was looking all of that day for a chance to 
make the coimter-stroke. He urged General McLaws, who had 
been sent to his assistance, to move forward and attack the enemy's 
right flank, but McLaws was so hotly engaged with those directly 
in his front that he never had an opportunity to do what General 
Jackson desired. Other efforts, with the same intent, marked his 
conduct during all that day. 

His tactics were mostly offensive, and by his marvelous strategy 
and skill, by his consummate daring and absolute confidence in 
himself and his men, he made up for his deficiency in numbers. 
Wlien circumstances obliged him to act on the defensive, he always 
at such times kept in view the counter-stroke. He did not wish 
to fight at Fredericksburg. His objection was, that there was no 
room for this return blow in the day-time, with the enemy's guns 
on Stafford Heights. 

i cannot refrain from speaking of the statement, recently made, 
that General Jackson advised General Lee on the night of the 17th 
of September to recross the Potomac into Virginia. I think it is 
a mistake. He told me at one o'clock that McClellan had done his 
worst. He was looking all the afternoon for a chance to strike the 
enemy, but he never had sufficient force to do it. He agreed with 
General Lee entirely during the whole of this campaign, and es- 
pecially during this battle. General Lee writes, in a letter which I 
have recently read: "Wlien he (Jackson) came upon the field, 
having preceded his troops, and learned my reasons for offering 
battle, he emphatically agreed with me. AVlien I determined to 
withdraw and cross the Potomac, he also agreed and said, in view of 
all the circumstances, it was better to have fought the battle in 
Maryland than to have left it without a struggle." I say it with all 
possible deference to a distinguished soldier and most respected 
gentleman, but there is every indication that General Stephen D. 
Lee's recollection as to Jackson's having proposed to cross the river 
on the night of the 17th is at fault. He says, at the interview he 
reports, that Longstreet came first and made his report. Long- 
street says in his book that he was the last to come. General Lee's 
letter, above referred to, shows the entire concurrence between him- 



206 Stonewall Jachson. 

self and General Jackson with respect to their movements both be- 
fore and after the battle. That General Jackson should have ad- 
vised Lee, without being asked, to cross the river the night of the 
17th is entirely at variance with his character. It was a liberty he 
certainly never would have permitted one of his subordinates to 
take with him. 

As for his care for the lives of his men, the great military critics, 
whose opinions I have quoted, told me that in this respect, especially, 
appeared the superiority of the Valley campaign to the Italian cam- 
paigns of I^apoleon. While the strategetical combinations were 
equally rapid and effective, the successes were attained with a pro- 
portion of loss to numbers engaged comparatively small. In the 
whole Valley campaign his losses did not exceed 2,500 men. His 
care was not only for numbers but for individuals. It was my 
habit to tell him after a battle the whole sad story of the losses, as 
they came under my observation. He always waited for this de- 
tailed report, and when I was delayed he would order that he should 
be waked up when I came in. Presently I shall have occasion to 
show you how, from time to time, he received such news. His com- 
missaries and quartermasters know how minutely he looked into all 
the details of their departments. To give only one illustration of 
his care for his soldiers. I remember in our march to the rear of 
Pope's army, which we made without any supply train, he called 
for two of his officers, and sent them with a squad of cavalry ahead 
of his army to tell the people he was coming and to ask them to 
send some provisions to his men. The people responded nobly to 
this appeal and brought liberal supplies of flour and meat and other 
things to the troops, and Jackson recognized the fact that these 
officers and the people had done a good service that day. 

Had he the personal magnetism that characterizes a great com- 
mander? Did he arouse the enthusiasm of his men? Wliat army 
ever had more unbounded confidence in its general, than did the 
army of Jackson ? And what general ever trusted and depended on 
his army more than Jackson ? Jackson knew the value of the South- 
ern volunteer better and sooner (as I believe) than any other of our 
great leaders. When General Johnston took command at Harper's 



Stoneivall JacJcson. ^ 007 

Ferry, the general staff went with the command. One day when 
the Second Virginia regiment, composed of men from my county 
marched by, I said to him, " If these men of the Second Viroinia 
will not fight, you have no troops that will." He expressed the 
prevalent but afterward changed opinion of that early 'dav in his 
reply, saying, " I would not give one company of regulars for the 
whole regiment." \Vlien I returned to General Jackson's staff I 
had occasion to quote to him General Johnston's opinion. " Did he 
say that?" he asked, "and of those splendid men?" And then 
he added, " The patriot volunteer, fighting for country and his 
rights males the most reliable soldier on earth." Was the confi- 
dence returned? When, at sight of him, the battle-shout of fight- 
ing thousands shook the far heavens, who could doubt its mean- 
ing? Did his men love him? What need of proof or illustrar 
tion? Do we not feel it to-day in every throb of our hearts, 
though the long years have rolled away, though three and one- 
half decades have done their sad work of effacement? 

I would like to show you Jackson as a man, for I think that 
only those who were near him knew him; and to them the pic- 
ture of him as a man with the heart of a man is nobler — his 
memory as a true Christian gentleman is dearer — and he him- 
self is greater — than he seemed even as a soldier. Under a 
grave and generally serious manner, sometimes almost stern, 
there were strong human passions dominated by his iron will — 
there was also intense earthly ambition. The first time I was under 
fire, the attempt to diagnose my feelings did not discover any- 
thing that I recognized as positive enjoyment. I was not clearly 
and unmistakably conscious of that feeling until after I got out 
of it. I told General Jackson frankly what my feelings were, 
and asked him how he felt the first time he experienced it. Just 
a glimpse of his inner nature flashed forth in a most unusual 
expression. " Afraid the fire would not be hot enough for me 
to distinguish myself," he promptly replied. 

There was in this great soldier a deep love for all that is true, 
for the beautiful, for the poetry of life, and a wealth of rich 
and quick imagination for which few would give him credit. 



208 Stoneivall Jachson. 

Ambition! Yes^, far beyond what ordinary men possess. And 
yet, he told me, when talking in my tent one dreary winter night 
near Charlestown, that he would not exchange one moment of 
his life hereafter for all the earthly glory he could win. I would 
not tell these things except that it is good for you and your chil- 
dren that you should know what manner of man Stonewall Jack- 
son was. 

His views of war and of its necessities were of the sternest. " War 
means fighting; to fight is the duty of a soldier; march swiftly, 
strike the foe with all your strength and take away from him 
everything you can. Injure him in every possible way, and do 
it quickly." He talked to me several times about the "black 
flag," and wondered if in the end it would not result in less suf- 
fering, and loss of life; but he never advocated it. 

A sad incident of the battle of Fredericksburg stirred him very 
deeply. As we stood that night at our camp, waiting for some 
one to take our horses, he looked up at the sky for a moment and 
said, " How horrible is war ! " I replied, '' Yes, horrible, but 
what can we do? These people at the ISTorth, without any war- 
rant of law, have invaded our country, stolen our property, in- 
sulted our defenceless women, hung and imprisoned our helpless 
old men, behaved in many cases like an organized band of cut- 
throats and robbers. What can we do ? " " Do," he answered, 
and his voice was ringing, " Do ; why shoot them." At Port Ee- 
public, an officer commanding a regiment of Federal soldiers and 
riding a snow-white horse, was very conspicuous for his gallantry. 
He frequently exposed himself to the fire of our men in the 
most reckless way. So splendid was this man's courage that Gen- 
eral Ewell, one of the most chivalrous gentlemen I ever knew, at 
some risk to his own life, rode down our line and called to his 
men not to shoot the man on the white horse. After a little 
while, however, the officer and his white horse went down. A day 
or so after, when General Jackson learned of the incident, he sent 
for General Ewell, and told him not to do such a thing again; 
that this was no ordinary war, and the brave and gallant Federal 



stonewall JacTcson. 209 

officers were the very kind that must be killed. Shoot the brave 
officers and the cowards will run away and take the men with 
them. 

His temper, though capable of being stirred to profoundest 
depths, was singularly even. When most provoked he showed no 
great excitement. When the Secretary of War treated him so 
discourteously that Jackson resigned his commission, he showed 
little resentment or indignation. He was the only man in the 
army who was not mad and excited. Two days after Mal- 
vern Hill, when his staff did not get up in the morning as soon 
as he had ordered them, he quietly ordered his servant, Jim, to 
pour the coffee into the road, to put the mess-chest back into the 
wagon and to send the wagon off with the train, and Jim 
did it; but he showed no temper, and several days after, 
when I described the ludicrous indignation of one of his staff at 
missing his breakfast that day, he laughed heartily over the inci- 
dent, for he often showed a keen sense of humor; and when he 
laughed (as I often saw him do) he did it with his whole heart. 
He would catch one knee with both hands, lift it up, throw his 
body back, open his mouth wide, and his whole face and form 
would be convulsed with mirth — but there was no sound. 

His consideration for his men was very great, and he often 
visited the hospital with me and spoke some words of encourage- 
ment to his wounded soldiers. The day after the tight at Kerns- 
town, as we were preparing to move further up the Valley, as the 
enemy was threatening to attack us, I said to him, " I have not been 
able to move all our wounded." He replied, "Very well, I will 
stay here until you do move them." I have seen him stop while 
his army was on the march to help a poor simple woman find her 
son, when she only knew that this son was in "Jackson's com- 
pany." He first found out the name of her county, then the com- 
panies from that county, and by sending couriers to each com- 
pany he at last found the boy and brought him to his mother. 
And I can never forget his kindness and gentleness to me when 
I was in great sorrow and trouble. He came to my tent and spent 
hours with me, comforting me in his simple, kindly. Christian 
14 



210 stonewall JacTcson. 

way, showing a depth of friendship and affection which can never 
be forgotten. There is no measuring the intensity with which 
the very soul of Jackson burned in battle. Out of it he was very 
gentle. Indeed, as I look back on the two years that I was daily, 
indeed hourly, with him, his gentleness as a man, his great kind- 
ness, his tenderness to those in trouble or affliction — the tender- 
ness indeed of a woman — impress me more than his wonderful 
prowess as a great warrior. 

A short time before the battle of Second Manassas, there 
came from Lexington to join the "Liberty Hall" Volunteers a fine 
lad, whose parents lived there and were dear friends of General 
Jackson. The General asked him to stay at his headquarters 
before joining his company, and he slept and messed with us. 
We all became much attached to the young fellow, and Jackson, 
in his gentle, winning way, did his best to make him feel at home 
and at his ease, the lad's manners were so gentle, kindly and diffi- 
dent, and his beardless, blue-eyed, boyish face was so manly and 
handsome. Just before the battle he reported for duty with his 
company. The night of the day of the great battle I was telling 
the General of the wounded as we stood over a fire where Jim, 
his servant, was making some coffee. I mentioned many of the 
wounded and their condition, and presently, calling by name 
the lad we all loved told him he was mortally wounded. 
Jim — faithful, brave, big-hearted Jim, God bless his memory! — 
rolled on the ground, groaning in his agony of grief; but the 
General's face was a study. The muscles were twitching con- 
vulsively and his eyes were all aglow. He gripped me by the 
shoulder till it hurt me, and in a fierce, threatening manner, 
asked why 1 left the boy. In a few seconds he recovered himself, 
turned and walked off into the woods alone. He soon came 
back, however, and I continued my report of the wounded and 
the dead. We were still sitting by the fire drinking the coffee out 
of our tin cups when I said, " We have won this battle by the 
hardest kind of fighting." He answered me very gently and 
softly, " No, no ; we have won it by the blessing of i?Llmighty God."^ 



stonewall JacJcson. 211 

When General Gregg, of South Carolina, was wounded at Fred- 
ericksburg, an interesting incident occurred. General Jackson 
had had a misunderstanding with Gregg, the nature of which I do 
not know recall. The night after this gallant gentleman and 
splendid soldier, was mortally wounded, I told General Jackson, 
as I generally did of friends or prominent men who had been killed 
and wounded. General Gregg was one of the most courteous and 
gallant gentlemen I had ever known. He exposed himself that day 
in a way that seemed unnecessary, so much so, indeed, that Colonel 
Pendleton, of Jackson's Staff, rode up to him, and, knowing he 
was quite deaf, shouted to him that the Yankees were shooting 
at him. '' Yes, sir ; thank you," he replied, " they have been 
doing so all day." V/hen I told General Jackson that Gregg was 
badly wounded, he said, " I wish you would go back and see him ; 
I want you to see him." I demurred a little, saying it had not 
been very long since I had seen him, and that there was nothing 
more to be done for him. He said, " I wish you to go back and see 
him, and tell him I sent you," So I rode back to the Yerby House, 
saw General Gregg, and gave him the message. When I left his 
bedside and had gotten into the hall of the house I met General 
Jackson, who must have ridden close behind me, to have arrived 
there so soon. He stopped me, asked about General Gregg and 
went into the room to see him. jSTo one else was in the room, and 
what passed between the two officers will never be known. I 
waited for him and rode back to camp with him. Not a word 
was spoken on that ride by either of us. After we reached the 
camp occurred the brief conversation I have quoted as to the hor- 
rors of war. 

A very remarkable illustration of Jackson's religious liberality 
was shown just before the battle of Chancellorsville. We had 
been ordered to send to the rear all surplus baggage, and— to illus- 
trate how rigidly this was done — only one tent, and that a small 
one, was allowed for the headquarters of the corps. It was in- 
tended to make the campaign of 1863 a very active one. "We 
must make this campaign," said Jackson, "an exceedingly active 
one. Only thus can a weaker country cope with a stronger. It 



313 Stoneivdll Jacl'son. 

must make up in activity what it lacks in strength, and a defen- 
sive campaign can only be made successful by taking the aggres- 
sive at the proper time. Don't wait for the adversary to become 
fully prepared, but strike him the first blow." When all the 
tents, among other surplus baggage, were taken away, a Roman 
Catholic priest, of one of the Louisiana regiments, sent in his 
resignation because he could not perform the duties of his office 
without the privacy of a tent. Jackson asked me about Father 

. I told him he was one of the most useful men in time 

of battle that we had; that I would miss his services very much. 
He ordered that this Eoman Catholic priest should retain his 
tent, and he was the only man in the corps who had that privi- 
lege. 

We now approach the close of Jackson's career. Wonderful 
career ! Wonderful in many respects, and to some minds more 
wonderful in that it took him only two years to make his place in 
history. Caesar spent eight years in his first series of victories, and 
some two years more in filling out the measure of his great repu- 
tation. Napoleon, teaching the lesson of indifference to danger 
to the boys he gathered around him after the fatal Russian cam- 
paign, said, " The cannon balls have been flying around our legs 
for twenty years." Hannibal's career occupiecT about fifteen 
years. No other great commander in the world's history has 
in so short a time won so great a fame as Jackson. Two years, 
crowded with weighty deeds, now drawn to a close, and Chancel- 
lorsville witnesses, perhaps, the most important single incident of 
his life as a soldier. The whole story has been too often told. 
Hooker, in command of what was called by the North " the finest 
army on the planet," crossed the Rappahannock and marched to 
Chancellorsville. He had 133,000 soldiers; Lee less than 58,000. 
Notwithstanding this Hooker was frightened by his own temerity in 
coming within striking distance of Lee and Jackson, and he at once 
set his whole army to work to throw up intrenchments and make 
abattis of the most formidable character. Lee and Jackson had 
to meet the present difficulty without the aid of a large portion 



Stoneivall Jaclcson. 213 

of their army, which was absent with Longsteet. Lee and Jackson ! 
How well I remember their meeting before this battle and their 
confiding conference ! How these two men loved and trusted each 
other! Where in all history shall we find a parallel to their 
mutual faith and love and confidence? I can find none. Said 
Jackson, "Lee is a phenomenon, I would follow him blind-fold." 
And Lee said to an aide-de-camp of Jackson's, who reported that 
Hooker had crossed the river, " Go back and tell General Jack- 
son that he knows as well as I what to do." After they arrived 
in front of Hooker our movements are described in a hitherto 
unpublished letter of General Lee's. That great commander, 
after saying that he decided not to attack in front, writes as fol- 
lows : " I stated to General Jackson, we must attack on our left 
as soon as practicable," and he adds, " In consequence of a report 
from General Fitz. Lee, describing the position of the Federal 
army, and the roads which he held with his cavalry leading to its 
rear, General Jackson— after some inquiry concerning the roads 
leading to the Furnace — undertook to throw his command en- 
tirely in Hooker's rear, which he accomplished with equal skill 
and boldness." General Jackson believed the fighting qualities 
of the Army of Northern Virginia equal to the task of ending the 
war. During the winter preceding Chancellorsville, in the course 
of a conversation at Moss Neck, he said : " We must do more than 
defeat their armies; we must destroy them." He went into this 
campaign filled with this stern purpose; ready to stretch to the 
utmost every energy of his genius and push to its limit all his 
faith in his men in order to destroy a great army of the enemy. 
I know this was his purpose, for after the battle, when still 
well enough to talk, he told me that he had intended, after break- 
ing into Hooker's rear, to take and fortify a suitable positon, 
cutting him off from the river and so hold him, until, between 
himserf and General Lee, the great Federal host should be broken 
to pieces. He had no fear. It was then that I heard him say, 
"We sometimes fail to drive them from position; they always 
fail to drive us." 



214 Stoneivall Jackson. 

Never can I forget the eagerness and intensity of Jackson on 
that march to Hooker's rear. His face was pale, his eyes were flash- 
ing. Out from his thin compressed lips came the terse command : 
"Press forward, press forward." In his eagerness, as he rode 
he leaned over on the neck of his horse as if in that way the march 
might be hurried. " See that the column is kept closed and that 
there is no straggling," he more than once ordered — and " Press 
on, press on" was repeated again and again. Every man in the 
ranks knew that we were engaged in some great flank movement, 
and they eagerly responded, and pressed on at a rapid gait. Fitz. 
Lee met us and told Jackson he could show him the whole 
of Hooker's army if he went with him to the top of a hill near by. 
They went together, and Jackson carefully inspected through his 
glasses the Federal command. He was so wrapped up in his plans 
that on his return he passed Fitz. Lee without saluting or thank- 
ing him, and when he reached the column he ordered one aide to 
go forward and tell General Eodes, who was in the lead, to cross 
the Plank road, and go straight on to the turnpike, and another 
aide to go to the rear of the column and see that it was kept 
closed up, and all along the line he repeatedly said " Press on, 
press right on." The fiercest energy possessed the man, and the 
fire of battle fell strong upon him. When he arrived at the Plank 
road he sent this, his last message, to Lee : " The enemy has 
made a stand at Chancellorsville. I hope as soon as practicable 
to attack. I trust that an ever kind Providence will bless us 
with success." And as this message went to Lee, there was flash- 
ing along the wires — giving brief joy to the Federal Capital — 
Hooker's message : '' The enemy must either ingloriously fly, or 
come out from behind his defences and give us battle on our 
own ground, where certain destruction awaits him." 

Contrast the two. Jackson's — modest, confident, hopeful — re- 
lying on his cause and his God. Hooker's — frightened, boastful, 
arrogant, vainglorious. The two messages are characteristic of 
the two men and of the two people. 

But this battle has been so often described in its minutest de- 
tail I forbear to tax your patience. I forbear for another reason. 



Stoneivall JacJcson. 315 

While I can write about it, I cannot speak of it to old soldiers 
without more emotion than I wish to show. The result of that 
great battle the world knows. Except for the unsurpassed— the 
wonderful campaign of 1864— this is perhaps the finest illustra- 
tion of General Lee's genius for war, and yet, in writing to Jack- 
son he says: "I have just received your note, informing me that 
you were wounded. I cannot express my regret at its occurrence. 
Could I have directed events, I would have chosen, for the good 
of the country, to have been disabled in your stead, I congratulate 
you on the victory, which is due to your skill and energy." 

See the noble spirit of our great commander ! Not further re- 
moved is pole from pole than was any mean jealousy or thought of 
self in his great soul. He obeyed the hard command that 
" In honor ye prefer one another." This note displays his great- 
ness, yet it is also history, in that we know, on his testimony, that 
Jackson shared with him the glory of that battle. These great 
soldiers loved and trusted one another, and in death they are not 
divided. How sacred is the soil of Lexington ! for here they rest 
side by side. 

I have already told the story of Jackson's death ; it is so famil- 
iar to you all, that, though intimately associated with its scenes, 
I will not narrate it again. I will only declare that he met this 
great enemy as he had met all others, calmly and steadily, expect- 
ing as always to conquer, but now trusting, not in his own strength 
— not as heretofore in the prowess of mortal arms, nor in the 
splendid fibre of mortal courage, but in the unseen strength upon 
which he had always relied — the strength that never failed him — 
and so, foreseeing the rest that awaited him on the other side, he 
crossed over tHe river. " My hand is on my mouth, and my mouth 
is in the dust." 

Already I have told you much that you already knew. In this 
I beg you to observe I have but fulfilled my promise. My apology 
is that my thoughts are in Lexington, and that I stand by the 
grave of Jackson. Under such circumstances love does not "seek 
new stories to tell, new incidents to relate. Just to its own heart 



216 Stoneivall Jackson. 

or to some sym|)atliizing ear, it goes over the old scenes, recalls 
the old memories, tenderly dwells upon and tells them over and 
over again, says farewell, and comes back again and stands silent 
in the presence of the dead, and so I finish what I had to say and 
bid farewell to Stonewall Jackson. And yet, all is not said, for 
even in the presence of his mighty shade, our hearts bow down 
and we are awed by another presence, for the towering form be- 
side him is that of Eobert Lee. Thought and feeling and power 
of expression are paralyzed. I cannot help you now with wordb 
to tell all that is in your hearts. 

Time fails, and I trust to your memories to recall a group more 
familiar, in whose presence perhaps we would not be so oppressed, 
and yet a list of names that ought to be dear to every Confederate. 
I think that in the wide, Avide world, no country of equal size 
has had so long a list of glorious dead — so many around whose 
memories a halo of glory gathers. Eeverently I salute them all. 

And so I leave the grave of my General and my friend, know- 
ing that for centuries men will come to Lexington as to a Mecca, 
and to this grave as to a shrine, and wonderingly talk of this man 
and his mighty deeds. I know that time will only add to his 
great fame. I know that his name will be honored and revered 
forever, just as I know that the beautiful river, flowing near by, 
will sing an unceasing requiem to his memory — just as I know 
that the proud mountains, like some vast chain of sentinels, will 
keep eternal watch over his honored grave. 



Account of the Wounding and Death 
of Stonewall Jackson 

By Hunter McGuire, M. D., L.L. D., 
Medical Director Jackson's Corps, A. N. Va. 



Published in the Richmond Medical Journal May, 1866. 



Wounding and Death of Jackson. 



Supported upon either side by his aids. Captains James Smith 
and Joseph Morrison, the General moved slowly and painfully 
toward the rear. Occasionally resting for a moment, to shake off 
the exhaustion which pain and the loss of blood produced, he at 
last reached the line of battle, where most of the men were lying 
down, to escape the shell and cannister, with which the Federals 
raked the road. General Pender rode up here to the little party, 
and asked who was wounded, and Captain Smith, who had been 
instructed by General Jackson to tell no one of his injury, simply 
answered "a Confederate ojfficer;" but Pender recognized the Gen- 
eral, and springing from his horse, hurriedly expressed his regret, 
and added that his lines were so much broken, he feared it would 
be necessary to fall back. At this moment the scene was a fearful 
one. The air seemed to be alive with the shrieks of shells and 
the whistling of bullets; horses, riderless and mad with fright, 
dashed in every direction; liundreds left the ranks and fled to 
the rear, and the groans of the wounded and dying, mingled with 
the wild shouts of others to be led again to the assault. Almost 
fainting as he was, from loss of blood, fearfully wounded, and as 
he thought, dying, Jackson was undismayed by this terrible scene. 
The words of Pender seemed to rouse him to life. Pushing aside 
the men who supported him, he stretched himself to his full 
height, and answered feebly, but distinctly enough to be heard 
above the din of the battle, " General Pender, you must hold on 
to the field, you must hold out to the last." It was Jackson's 
last order upon the field of battle. Still more exhausted by this 
effort, he asked to be permitted to lie down for a few moments, 
but the danger from the fire, and capture by the Federal ad- 
vance, was too imminent, and his aids, hurried him on. A litter 
having been obtained, he was placed upon it, and the bearers 
passed on as rapidly as the thick woods and rough ground per- 

[219] 



220 Wounding and Death of Jackson. 

mitted. Unfortunately, one of the bearers was struck down, and 
the litter having been supported at each of the four corners by 
a man, fell and threw the General to the ground. The fall was 
a serious one, and as he touched the earth, he gave, for the first 
time, expression to his suffering, and groaned piteously. 

Captain Smith sprang to his side, and as he raised his head, a 
bright beam of moonlight, made its way through the thick foliage 
and rested upon the pale face of the sufferer. The Captain was 
startled by its great pallor and stillness, and cried out, " Oh ! Gen- 
eral, are you seriously hurt ? " " No," he answered, " don't trouble 
yourself, my friend, about me," and presently added something 
about winning the battle first, and attending to the wounded after- 
wards. He was placed upon the litter again, and carried a few 
hundred yards, when I met him with an ambulance. I knelt 
down by him, and said, " I hope you are not badly hurt. General." 
He replied very calmly, but feebly, '' I am badly injured, Doctor; 
I fear I am dying." After a pause, he continued, " I am glad you 
have come." I think the wound in my shoulder is still bleed- 
ing. His clothes were saturated with blood, and hemorrhage was 
still going on from the wound. Compression of the artery with the 
finger arrested it, until lights being procured from the ambulance, 
the handkerchief which had slipped a little, was readjusted. His 
calmness amid the dangers which surrounded him, and at the 
supposed presence of death, and his uniform politeness, which 
did not forsake him, even under these, the most trying circum- 
stances, were remarkable. His complete control, too, over his 
mind, enfeebled as it was by loss of blood, pain, &c., was won- 
derful. His suffering at this time was intense; his hands were 
cold, his skin clammy, his face pale, and his lips compressed and 
bloodless; not a groan escaped him — not a sign of suffering, ex- 
cept the slight corrugation of his brow, the fixed, rigid face, and 
the thin lips so tightly compressed that the impression of the 
teeth could be seen through them. Except these, he controlled, 
by his iron will, all evidence of emotion, and more difficult than 
this even, he controlled that disposition to restlessness which 



Wounding and Death of Jaclcson. 221 

many of us have observed upon the field of battle, attending great 
loss of blood. Some whiskey and morphia were procured from 
Dr. Straith, and administered to him, and placing him in the 
ambulance, it was started for the Corps Field Infirmary, at the 
Wilderness Tavern. Col. Crutchfield, his Chief of Artillery, was 
also in the ambulance. He had been wounded very seriously in 
the leg, and was suffering intensely. 

The General expressed, very feelingly, his sympathy for Crutch- 
field, and once, when the latter groaned aloud, he directed the 
ambulance to stop, and requested me to see if something could 
not be done for his relief. Torches had been provided, and every 
means taken to carry them to the hospital, as safely and easily as 
possible. I sat in the front part of the ambulance, with my finger 
resting upon the artery, above the wound, to arrest bleeding if 
it should occur. When I was recognized by acquaintances, and 
asked who was wounded, the General would tell me to say, " a Con- 
federate officer." At one time, he put his right hand upon my 
head, and pulling me down to him, asked "if Crutchfield was dan- 
gerously wounded ?" AYhen I answered " ISTo, only painfully hurt," 
he replied, " I am glad it is no worse." In a few moments after, 
Crutchfield did the same thing, and when he was told that the 
General was very seriously wounded, he groaned and cried out, 
" 0, my God ! " It w^as for this, that the General directed the 
ambulance to be halted, and requested that something should be 
done for Crutchfield's relief. 

After reaching the hospital, he was placed in bed, covered with 
blankets, and another drink of whiskey and water given him. Two 
hours and a half elapsed before sufficient reaction took place, to 
warrant an examination. At two o'clock Sunday morning Sur- 
geons Black, Walls and Coleman being present, I informed him 
that chloroform would be given him, and his wounds examined. 
I told him that amputation would probably be required, and asked 
if it was found necessary, whether it should be done at once. He 
replied promptly, "Yes, certainly; Doctor McGuire, do for me 
whatever you think best." Chloroform was then administered, 



222 Wounding and Death of Jackson. 

and as he began to feel its effects, and its relief to the pain he 
was suffering, he exclaimed, " What an infinite blessing," and 
continued to repeat the word " blessing," until he became insensi- 
ble. The round ball, (such as is used for the smooth-bore Spring- 
field musket) which had lodged under the skin, upon the back of 
his right hand was extracted first. It had entered the palm, about 
the middle of the hand, and had fractured two of the bones. The 
left arm was then amputated, about two inches below the shoul- 
der, very rapidly, and with slight loss of blood, the ordinary cir- 
cular operation having been made. There were two wounds in 
this arm, the first and most serious was about three inches below 
the shoulder-joint, the ball dividing the main artery, and fractur- 
ing the bone. The second was several inches in length; a ball 
having entered the outside of the forearm, an inch below the 
elbow, came out upon the opposite side, just above the wrist. 
Throughout the whole of the operation, and until all the dressings 
were applied, he continued insensible. Two or three slight wounds 
of the skin on his face, received from the branches of trees, when 
his horse dashed through the woods, were dressed simply with 
isinglass plaster. About half past three o'clock Colonel (then 
Major) Pendleton, the Assistant Adjutant General, arrived at 
the hospital, and asked to see the General. He stated that Gen. 
Hill had been wounded, and that the troops were in great dis- 
order. General Stuart was in command, and had sent him to see 
the General. At first, I declined to permit an interview, but the 
Colonel urged that the safety of the army and success of the cause 
depended upon his seeing him. When he entered the tent the 
General said, '' Well, Major, I am glad to see you ; I thought you 
were killed." Pendleton briefly explained the condition of affairs, 
gave Stuart's message, and asked what should be done. General 
Jackson was at once interested, and asked in his quick rapid way, 
several questions. Wlien they were answered, he remained silent 
a moment, evidently trying to think; contracted his brow, set 
his mouth, and for some moments was obviously endeavoring 
to concentrate his thoughts. For a moment it was believed he 



Wounding and Death of Jackson. 223 

had succeeded, for his nostrils dilated, and his eyes flashed its old 
fire, but it was only for a moment; his face relaxed again, and 
presently he answered very feebly and sadly, "I don't know — I 
can't tell ; say to General Stuart he must do what he thinks best." 
Soon after this, he slept for several hours, and seemed to be doing 
well. The next morning he was free from pain, and expressed him- 
self sanguine of recovery. He sent his aid-de-camp, Morrison, to 
inform his wife of his injuries, and to bring her at once to see 
him. The following note from General Lee, was read to him that 
morning by Captain Smith : " I have Just received your note, 
informing me that you were wounded. I cannot express my regret 
at the occurrence. Could I have directed events, I should have 
chosen, for the good of the country, to have been disabled in your 
stead. I congratulate you upon the victory which is due to your 
skill and energy." He replied, " General Lee should give the praise 
to God," About ten o'clock his right side began to pain hin> 
so much that he asked me to examine it. He said he had in- 
jured it in falling from the litter the night before, and believed 
that he had struck it against a stone or the stump of a sapling. 
No evidence of injury could be discovered by examination; the 
skin was not broken or bruised, and the lung performed, as far 
as I could tell, its proper functions. Some simple application 
was recommended, in the belief that the pain would soon dis- 
appear. 

At this time the battle was raging fearfully, and the sound of 
the cannon and musketry could be distinctly heard at the hos- 
pital. The General's attention was attracted to it from the first, 
and when the noise was at its height, and indicated how fiercely 
the conflict was being carried on, he directed all of his attend- 
ants, except Captain Smith, to return to the battlefield, and attend 
to their different duties. By eight o'clock, Sunday night, the pain 
in his side had disappeared, and in all respects he seemed to be 
doing well. He inquired minutely about the battle, and the dif- 
ferent troops engaged, and his face would light up with enthusiasm 
and interest when told how this brigade acted, or that officer dis- 



224 Wounding and Death of JacTcson. 

played conspicuous courage, and his head gave the peculiar shake 
from side to side, and he uttered his usual " Good, good," with 
unwonted energy when the gallant behavior of the " Stonewall Bri- 
gade " was alluded to. He said, "The men of that brigade will 
be, some day, proud to say to their children, ' I was one of the 
Stonewall Brigade.' " He disclaimed any right of his own to the 
name Stonewall. "It belongs to the brigade and not to me." 

This night he slept well, and was free from pain. A message 
was received from General Lee the next morning, directing me to 
remove the General to Guinea's Station, as soon as his condition 
would justify it, as there was some danger of capture by the Fed- 
erals, who were threatening to cross at Ely's Ford. In the mean- 
time, to protect the hospital, some troops were sent to this point. 
The General objected to being moved, if, in my opinion, it would 
do him any injury. He said he had no objection to staying in a 
tent, and would prefer it, if his wife, when she came, could find 
lodging in a neighboring house, '' And if the enemy does come," 
he added, " I am not afraid of them ; I have always been kind to 
their wounded, and I am sure they will be kind to me." General 
Lee sent word again late that evening that he must be moved if 
possible, and preparations were made to leave the next morning. 
I was directed to accompany, and remain with him, and my duties 
with the corps, as Medical director, were turned over to the Sur- 
geon next in rank. General Jackson had previously declined to 
permit me to go with him to Guinea's, because complaints had 
been so frequently made of General officers, when wounded, car- 
rying off with them the surgeons belonging to their commands. 
When infonned of this order of the Commanding General, he said, 
" General Lee has always been very kind to me, and I thank him." 
Very early Tuesday morning he was placed in an ambulance and 
started for Guinea's Station, and about eight o'clock that even- 
ing he arrived at the Chandler House, where he remained till he 
died. Captain Hotchkiss, with a party of engineers, was sent in 
front to clear the road of wood, stone, etc., and to order the 
wagons out of the track to let the ambulance pass. The rough 



Wounding and Death of Jaclson. 225 

teamsters sometimes refused to move their loaded wagons out of 
the way for an ambulance, until told that it contained Jackson, 
and then, with all possible speed, they gave the way, and stood 
with hats off, and weeping, as he went by. At Spotsylvania C. H., 
and along the whole route, men and women rushed to the ambu- 
lance, bringing all the poor delicacies they had, and with tearful 
eyes they blessed him, and prayed for his recovery. He bore the 
journey well, and was cheerful throughout the day. He talked 
freely about the late battle, and among other things, said that he 
had intended to endeavor to cut the Federals off from the United 
States Ford, and taking a position between them and the river, 
oblige them to attack him ; and he added, with a smile, " My men 
sometimes fail to drive the enemy from a position, but they always 
fail to drive us away." He spoke of Eodes, and alluded in high 
terms to his magnificent behavior on the field Saturday evening. 
He hoped he would be promoted. He thought promotions for 
gallantry should be made at once, upon the field, and not delayed; 
made very early, or upon the field, they would be the greatest in- 
centives to gallantry in others. He spoke of Colonel Willis,* who 
commanded the skirmishers of Eodes' Division, and praised him 
very highly, and referred to the death of Paxton and Boswell very- 
feel ingly. He alluded to them as officers of great merit and prom- 
ise. The day was quite warm, and at one time he suffered with 
slight nausea. At his suggestion, I placed over his stomach a wet 
towel, and he expressed great relief from it. After he arrived at 
Chandler's house, he ate some bread and tea with evident relish, 
and slept well throughout the entire night. Wednesday he was 
thought to be doing remarkably well. He ate heartily, for one 
in his condition, and was uniformly cheerful. 

I found his wounds to be doing very well to-day. Union by the 
first intention, had taken place, to some extent, in the stump, 
and the rest of the surface of the wound exposed, was covered 
with healthy granulations. The wound in his hand gave him little 
pain, and the discharge was healthy. Simple lime and water dress- 

♦Subsequently killed in battle. 
15 



226 Wounding and Death of Jackson. 

ings were used both for the stump and hand, and upon the palm 
of the latter, a light, short splint was applied, to assist in keeping 
at rest the fragments of the second and third metacarpal bones. 
He expressed great satisfaction when told that the wounds were 
healing, and asked if I could tell from their appearance, how long 
he would probably be kept from the field? Conversing with Capt. 
Smith, a few moments afterwards, he alluded to his injuries, and 
said, " Many would regard them as a great misfortune, I regard 
them as one of the blessings of my life." Captain S. replied, "All 
things work together for good to those that love God." " Yes," 
he answered, "that's it, that's it." 

At my request. Dr. Morrison came to-day, and remained with 
him. 

About one o'clock Thursday morning, while I was asleep upon 
a lounge in his room, he directed his servant, Jim, to apply a wet 
towel to his stomach, to relieve an attack of nausea, with which he 
was again troubled. The servant asked permission to first con- 
sult me, but the General knowing that I had slept none for nearly 
three nights, refused to allow the servant to disturb me, and de- 
ma ndecl the towel. About daylight I was aroused, and found him 
suffering great pain. An examination disclosed pleuro-pneumonia 
of the right side. I believed, and the consulting physicians con- 
curred in the opinion, that it was attributable to the fall from the 
litter, the night he was wounded. The General, himself, referred 
it to this accident. I think the disease came on too soon after 
the application of the wet cloths, to admit of the supposition, once 
believed, that it v/ns induced by them. The nausea, for which the 
cloths were applied ibat nigl.t, may have been the result of in- 
flammation already begun. Contusion of the lung, with extrava- 
sation of blood in his chest, was probably produced by the fall re- 
ferred to, and shock and loss of blood, prevented any ill effects 
until reaction had been well established, and then inflammation 
ensued. Cups were applied, and mercury, with antimony and 
opium administered.* Towards the evening he became better, 

*A detailed account of the treatment is prevented by the loss of 
notes kept of the case. These notes, with other papers, were captured 
by the Federals, March, 1865. 



Wounding and Death of Jaclson. 227 

and hopes were again entertained of his recovery. Mrs. Jackson 
arrived to-day, and nursed him faithfully to the end. She v^as a 
devoted wife, and earnest Christian, and endeared us all to her 
by her great kindness and gentleness. The General's joy at the 
presence of his wife and child was very great, and for him unusu- 
ally demonstrative. Noticing the sadness of his wife, he said to 
her tenderly, " I know you would gladly give your life for me, 
but I am perfectly resigned. Do not be sad ; I hope I may yet re- 
cover. Pray for me, but always remember in your prayers to use 
the petition, 'Thy will be done.' " Friday his wounds were again 
dressed, and although the quantity of the discharge from them, 
had diminished, the process of healing was still going on. The pain 
in his side had disappeared, but he breathed with difficulty and 
complained of a feeling of great exhaustion. When Dr. Breckin- 
ridge (who with Dr. Smith, had been sent for in consultation) 
said he hoped that a blister, which had been applied, would afford 
him relief, he expressed his own confidence in it, and in his final 
recovery. 

Dr. Tucker, from Eichmond, arrived on Saturday, and all that 
human skill could devise was done, to stay the hand of death. He 
suffered no pain to-day, and his breathing was less difficult, but 
he was evidently hourly growing weaker. 

When his child was brought to him, to-day, he played with it 
for some time ; frequently caressing it, and calling it his " little 
comforter." At one time, he raised his wounded hand above its 
head, and closing his eyes, was for some moments, silently en- 
gaged in prayer. He said to me, " I see from the number of phy- 
sicians that you think my condition dangerous, but I thank God, 
if it is His will, that I am ready to go." About daylight, on 
Sunday morning, Mrs. Jackson informed him that his recovery 
was very doubtful, and that it was better that he should be pre- 
pared for the worst. He was silent for a moment, and then said : 
'•'It will be infinite gain to be translated to Heaven." He ad- 
<rised his wife, in the event of his death, to return to her father's 
Aouse, and added, " You have a kind and good father, but there 



328 Wounding and Death of Jachson. 

is no one so kind and good as your Heavenly Father." He still 
expressed a hope of his recovery, but requested her, if he should 
die, to have him buried in Lexington, in the Valley of Virginia. 
His exhaustion increased so rapidly, that at eleven o'clock, Mrs. 
Jackson knelt by his bed, and told him that before the sun went 
down, he would be with his Saviour. He replied, "Oh, no ! you 
are frightened, my child ; death is not so near ; I may yet get well." 
She fell over upon the bed, weeping bitterly, and told him again 
that the physicians said there was no hope. After a moment's 
pause he asked her to call me. " Doctor, Anna informs me that 
you have told her that I am to die to-day ; is it so ? " When he 
was answered, he turned his eyes towards the ceiling, and gazed 
for a moment or two, as if in intense thought, then replied, "Very 
good, very good, it is all right." He then tried to comfort his 
almost heart-broken wife, and told her he had a good deal to say 
to her, but he was too weak. Colonel Pendleton came into the 
room about one o'clock, and he asked him, '' Who was preaching 
at headquarters to-day ? " When told that the whole army was 
praying for him, he replied, " Thank God — they are very kind." 
He said : "It is the Lord's Day ; my wish is fulfilled. I have 
always desired to die on Sunday." 

His mind now began to fail and wander, and he frequently 
talked as if in command upon the field, giving orders in his old 
way; then the scene shifted, and he was at the mess-table, in con- 
versation with members of his staff; now with his wife and child; 
now at prayers with his military family. Occasional intervals of 
return of his mind would appear, and during one of them, I offered 
him some brandy and water, but he declined it, saying, "It will 
only delay my departure, and do no good; I want to preserve my 
mind, if possible, to the last." About half-past one, he was told 
that he had but two hours to live, and he answered again, feebly, 
but firmly, "Very good, it is all right." A few moments before 
he died he cried out in his delirium, " Order A. P. Hill to pre- 
pare for action ! pass the infantry to the front rapidly ! tell Major 
Hawks " — then stopped, leaving the sentence unfinished. Pres- 



V\'oimdin.g and Death of Jackson. 239 

ently, a smile of ineffable sweetness spread itself over his pale face, 
and he said quietly, and with an expression, as if of relief, " Let 
us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees;" 
and then, without pain, or the least struggle, his spirit passed 
from earth to the God who gave it. 



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